Berkeley 


EARTHWORK 
OUT   OF   TUSCANY 


"  For  as  it  is  hurtful  to  drink  wine  or 
water  alone ;  and  as  wine  mingled 
with  water  is  pleasant  and  delighteth 
the  taste :  even  so  speech,  finely  framed, 
delighteth  the  ears  of  them  that  read 
the  story  T — 2  MACCABEES  xv.  39. 


EARTHWORK    OUT    OF 

TUSCANY  #  BEING  IMPRES- 
SIONS AND  TRANSLATIONS  OF 
MAURICE  HEWLETT 


PRINTED  FOR  THOMAS  B  MOSHER  AND 
PUBLISHED  B Y  HIM  AT  45  EXCHANGE 
STREET  PORTLAND  MAINE  MDCCCCXI 


Limited  to  Seven  Hundred 
Copies  for  sale  in  America 


TO 

MY    FATHER 
THIS   LITTLE    BOOK, 

NOT  AS  BEING   WORTHY,    BUT  AS  ALL   I    HAVE, 
IS    DEDICATED 


/  cannot  add  one  tendril  to  your  bays, 

Worn  quietly  where  who  love  you  sing  your  praise, 

But  I  may  stand 

Among  the  household  throng  with  lifted  hand, 

Upholding  for  sweet  honour  of  the  land 

Your  crown  of  days. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

FOREWORD ix 

ADVERTISEMENT 3 

PROEM:  APOLOGIA  PRO  LIBELLO    ...  5 

I     EYE  OF  ITALY 17 

II     LITTLE  FLOWERS 33 

III  OF  SHEEP-SHEARERS 45 

IV  A    SACRIFICE    AT    PRATO      ....  52 
V      OF    POETS    AND    NEEDLEWORK     .       .  72 

VI      THE    SOUL    OF    A    FACT        ....  88 

VII       QUATTROCENTISTERIA 104 

VIII       THE    BURDEN    OF    NEW    TYRE        .       .  137 

IX       ILARIA,    MARIOTA,    BETTINA    .       .       .  147 

X       SERVUS    SERVORUM 159 

XI       CATS 167 

XII       THE    SOUL    OF    A    CITY         .       .       .       .  178 

XIII  WITH    THE    BROWN    BEAR          .       .       .  195 

XIV  FRIENDS    IN    COUNCIL 208 

XV       DEAD    CHURCHES    AT    FOLIGNO     .       .  2l8 

ENVOY  :    TO    ALL    YOU    LADIES      .       .       .       .  235 

APPENDIX  : 

OF    BOILS    AND    THE    IDEAL       .       .       .       .  245 

FOR    THREE    FIGURES    BY    BOTTICELLI    .  263 


FOREWORD 

(MAINLY  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL) 

[R.  MAURICE  HEWLETT'S  Earth- 

i  work  out  of  Tuscany  needs  somewhat 
!  more  than  ordinary  attention  in  a 
bibliographical  way.  The  First  Edition  (Fcap 
8vo.  Pp.  xii :  1-180)  contains  between  Proem 
and  Envoy  fifteen  essays  which  form  the  basis 
of  our  present  reprint  verbatim  et  literatim* 

1  This  statement  is  to  be  qualified  by  noting  the 
omission  of,  "  My  thanks  are  due  to  the  Editor  of 
Black  and  White  for  permission  to  reprint  the  sub- 
stance of  this  essay."  (Eye  of  Italy.} 

An  unpleasant  suspicion  remains  concerning  the 
number  of  copies  actually  printed  of  the  First  Edition, 
there  being  two  imprints  in  existence  with  two  cer- 
tificates as  to  the  number  issued.  The  First  London 
Edition  which  we  reprint  specifies  five  hundred  copies 
only,  and  bears  the  imprint  of  J.  M.  Dent  &  Co.  alone. 
There  was  also  issued  the  same  book  with  this  imprint, 
"  MDCCCXCV.  London  :  J.  M.  Dent  &  Co.,  New 
York :  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,"  and  the  certificate 
reads :  "  Limited  to  five  hundred  copies  for  sale  in 


x  Foreword 

It  also  had  a  photogravure  frontispiece  of  a 
head  by  Botticelli  which  we  reproduce.2  The 
edition  was  "  Limited  to  Five  Hundred  Copies 
for  sale  in  England,"  and  the  price  at  date  of 
issue  was  4^.  6d.  To-day,  if  one  is  fortunate 
enough  to  find  a  copy  in  the  hands  of  the 
London  dealer,  the  price  is  from  five  to  six 
guineas.  It  is  almost  needless  to  remark  that 
with  the  American  dealer  the  price  varies  from 
ten  to  thirty  dollars.  Dealers  on  both  sides 
the  Atlantic  will  justify  themselves  by  the 
scarcity  of  the  book,  which  is  admitted,  and 
you  are  treated  to  some  further  refinements 
as  to  "  states  "  of  binding  if  you  are  foolish 
enough  to  listen.  Possibly  Buckram  went 
on  the  earliest  copies,  but  this  minor  detail 

England  and  America"  Does  this  mean  we  are  con- 
fronted with  one  thousand  copies  all  told  ? 

Apparently  Mr.  Maurice  Hewlett  had  in  mind  only 
five  hundred  copies,  for  in  his  Preface  to  the  Second 
Edition  he  says :  "  It  is  sufficient  for  me  that  in  a 
world  indifferent  well-peopled  five  hundred  souls  have 
bought  or  acquired  my  book." 

2  An  unidentified  portrait.  In  an  interesting  article 
by  Teresina  Peck  (See  The  Lamp  for  April,  1904,)  the 
subject  of  Simonetta  and  of  her  various  alleged  por- 
traits has  been  treated  at  considerable  length. 


Foreword  xi 

should  not  give  one  pause ;   cloth  or  buckram 
the  book  is  rare  and  there's  an  end  on  't ! 

The  Second  English  Edition  of  Earthwork 
out  of  Tuscany  reveals  signs  of  variation,  so 
to  speak,  as  of  a  plant  under  domestication. 
In  1899,  when  this  Second  Edition  appeared 
it  had  suffered,  again  so  to  speak,  "  a  sea 
change,"  and  somewhat  larger  in  page  format 
contained  a  series  of  illustrations,  seventeen  in 
number,  by  Mr.  James  Kerr  Lawson  with  an 
imaginary  head  of  Toscanella  in  place  of  the 
original  frontispiece.  As  far  forth  as  possible 
the  old  electrotype  plates  of  the  First  Edition 
were  put  to  service  and  a  Preface  dated  "  Lon- 
don, 1898,"  now  appeared.  At  once  Messrs. 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons  reprinted  it  in  America, 
duly  copyrighted,  though  what  there  was  to 
legally  copyright  is  difficult  to  find  out.1 
Most  decidedly  it  was  not  the  original  Adver- 

«  The  title-page  now  gives  additional  information 
which  reads :  "  With  Illustrations  by  James  Kerr 
Lawson,"  and  "Second  Edition  revised."  (Pp.  xx : 
1-182.)  The  Messrs.  Putnams  and  also  Scribners  say 
of  the  American  reprint,  "  New  edition  with  addi- 
tional illustrations  in  photogravure."  A  frontispiece 
(the  head  of  Perugino)  now  adorns  the  work.  (Pp. 
xx :  1-234. 


xii  Foreword 

tisement  nor  was  it  the  omission  of  three  essays 
printed  in  the  First  Edition,  where  they  still 
remain,  unheralded  but  not  unknown,  to  wit: 
Of  Sheep- Shearers,  Servus  Servorum,  and  Friends 
in  Council.  Excellent  little  dramatic  studies 
which,  speaking  for  ourselves,  we  do  not  see 
how  Mr.  Hewlett  had  the  heart  to  omit.  He 
did,  however,  insert  an  essay  entitled,  Of 
Boils  and  the  Ideal.  As  this  had  previously 
appeared  in  The  New  Review,  edited  by  W.  E. 
Henley,  for  December,  1896,  it  could  scarcely 
be  held  as  "  copyright."  It  is  enough  to  say 
that  this  edition  with  the  Putnam  imprint  was 
later  on  acquired  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons 
(1908),  and  is  now  printed  from  the  same 
plates  in  every  respect  identical  with  the 
Putnam  reissue.1 

i  What  we  said  on  the  appearance  of  the  Second 
London  Edition  may  be  profitably  read  in  The  Bibelot 
for  August,  1899  :  "  Like  a  belated  Spring  the  re-issue 
of  Earthwork  out  of  Tuscany  has  been  long  in  coming 
up  our  way.  And  now  that  it  is  once  more  accessible, 
one  can  but  regret  that  this  incomparable  first  book  of 
Mr.  Hewlett's  fashioning  should  reach  us  somewhat 
shorn  of  its  earlier  simplicity.  To  be  perfectly  frank, 
the  omission  of  three  dramatic  scenes,  and  the  Botti- 
celli frontispiece  is  poorly  made  up  by  the  additional 


Foreword  xiii 

Later  on  a  "Third  Edition  Revised"  was 
published  by  Macmillan  and  Co.,  London, 
1901,  in  their  Eversley  Series,  (Globe  8vo. 
Pp.  xviii:  1-205).  This  edition  had  no  illus- 
trations whatever,  but  contained  a  reprint  of 
the  Preface  to  the  Second  Edition  and  a  new 
Preface  to  the  Third  Edition  as  follows : 

"I  cannot  be  for  ever  explaining  what  I  intended 
when  I  wrote  this  book.  Upon  this,  its  third  appear- 
ance, even  though  it  is  to  rank  in  that  good  company 
which  wears  the  crimson  of  Eversley,  it  must  take  its 
chance,  undefended  by  its  conscious  parent.  He 
feels,  indeed,  with  all  the  anxieties,  something  of  the 
pride  of  the  hen,  who  conducts  her  brood  of  ducklings 
to  the  water,  sees  them  embark  upon  the  flood,  and 
must  leave  them  to  their  buoyant  performances, 
dreadful,  but  aware  also  that  they  are  doing  a  finer 
thing  than  her  own  merits  could  have  hoped  to  win 
them.  So  it  is  here.  I  did  not  at  the  outset  expect  a 
third  edition  in  any  livery ;  I  may  still  fear  a  wreck 
for  this  cockboat  of  my  early  invention ;  but  I  hope  I 
am  too  respectful  of  myself  to  try  throwing  oil  upon 
the  waters. 

"  I  leave  the  former  prefaces  as  they  stand.     I  felt 

essay — Of  Boils  and  the  Ideal — or  the  so-called 
embellishments  of  the  text  by  Mr.  James  Kerr  Law- 
son.  One  could  well  have  wished  that  this  amateur 
in  art  had  spared  us  his  travesty  of  the  old  Florentine's 
Nascita  di  Venere" 


xiv  Foreword 

them  when  I  made  them,  and  feel  them  still ;  but  I 
shall  make  no  more.  If  Earthwork  has  the  confi- 
dence, at  this  time  of  day,  to  carry  a  red  coat,  it  shall 
carry  it  alone." 

How  much  further  revision  was  given  the 
text  in  this  Third  Edition  we  do  not  undertake 
to  point  out.  The  absence  of  the  Lawson 
pictures  accounts  for  the  omission  of  the  final 
paragraph  of  the  Preface.  What  was  good 
enough  at  the  start  (though  why  cancel  the 
original  frontispiece  ? )  was  good  enough  at 
the  finish. 

The  prime  cause  of  our  reprint  is  now  suffi- 
ciently set  forth.  It  aims  to  reproduce  the 
text  of  the  First  Edition  as  originally  written 
by  a  young  man  of  genius.  A  careful  colla- 
tion of  the  First  with  the  Second  Edition 
shows  that  many  minor  changes  were  made 
which  to  our  mind  were  not  improvements. 
It  is  precisely  what  a  disciple  of  Pater  having 
in  mind  Pater's  own  recension  of  Marius 
would  be  tempted  to  do.  Was  it  wisely  done  ? 
Admirers  of  Maurice  Hewlett  will  now  be  able 
to  read  the  text  of  Earthwork  out  of  Tuscany 
as  originally  printed  in  1895,  written  in  a  style 
that  required  only  to  be  let  alone  and  not 
tampered  with  by  its  author. 

THOMAS    B.    MOSHER. 


EARTHWORK 
OUT   OF   TUSCANY 


AD  VER  TISEMENT 

\  OLITE  reader,  you  who  have  travelled 
j  Italy,  it  will  not  be  unknown  to  you  that  the 
;  humbler  sort  in  that  cottntry  have  ever 
»  believed  certain  spots  and  recesses  of  their 
land — as  wells,  mountain-paths,  farmsteads,  groves  of 
ilex  or  olive,  quiet  pinewoods,  creeks  or  bays  of  the  sea, 
and  such  like  hidden  ways  —  to  be  the  chosen  resort  of 
familiar  spirits,  baleful  or  beneficent,  fate-ridden  or 
amenable  to  prayer,  half  divine,  wholly  out  of  rule  or 
ordering ;  which  rustic  deities  and  genii  locorum,  if  it 
was  not  needful  to  propitiate,  it  was  fascination  to 
observe.  It  is  believed  of  them  in  the  hill-country  round 
about  Perugia  and  in  the  quieter  parts  of  Tuscany,  that 
they  are  still  present,  tolerated  of  God  by  reason  of  their 
origin  (which  is,  indeed,  that  of  the  very  soil  whose 
effluence  they  are),  chastened,  circumscribed,  and,  as  it 
were,  combed  or  pared  of  evil  desire  and  import.  To 
them  or  their  avatars  (it  matters  little  which)  the  rude 
people  still  bow  down  /  they  still  humour  them  with  gifts 
of  flowers,  songs,  or  artless  customs  (as  May-day,  or  the 
Giorno  de'  Grillij  ;  you  may  still  see  wayside  shrines, 
votive  tablets,  humble  offerings,  set  in  a  farm-wall  or 
country  hedge,  starry  and  fresh  as  a  patch  of  yellow 


4  Advertisement 

flowers  in  a  rye  field.  If  you  say  that  they  have  made 
gods  in  their  own  image,  yoii  do  not  convince  them  of 
Sin,  for  they  do  as  their  betters.  If  you  say  their  gods 
are  earthy,  they  reply  by  asking,  "  What  then  are  we?" 
For  they  will  admit,  and  you  cannot  deny,  earthiness  to 
have  at  least  a  part  in  all  of  us.  And  you  are  forbidden 
to  call  this  unhappy,  since  God  made  all.  Out  of  the 
drenched  earth  whence  these  worshippers  arose,  they 
made  their  rough-cast  gods ;  out  of  the  same  earth  they 
still  mould  images  to  speak  the  presentment  of  them 
which  they  have.  Out  of  that  earth,  I,  a  northern 
image-maker,  have  set  up  my  conceits  of  their  informing 
spirits,  of  the  spirits  of  themselves,  their  soil,  and  the 
fair  works  they  have  accomplished.  So  I  have  called 
this  book  Earthwork  out  of  Tuscany.  Qui  habet  aures 
ad  audiendum  audiat. 

LONDON,  1895. 


PROEM 

APOLOGIA    PRO    LIBELLO   SUO :    IN    A    LETTER 
TO   A    FRIEND 

ALTHOUGH  you  know  your  Italy 
|  well,  you  ask  me,  who  see  her  now 
|  for  the  first  time,  to  tell  you  how  I 
find  her ;  how  she  sinks  into  me ;  wherein 
she  fulfils,  and  wherein  fails  to  fulfil,  certain 
dreams  and  fancies  of  mine  (old  amusements 
of  yours)  about  her.  Here,  truly,  you  show 
yourself  the  diligent  collector  of  human  docu- 
ments your  friends  have  always  believed  you ; 
for  I  think  it  can  only  be  appetite  for  acquisi- 
tion, to  see  how  a  man  recognizant  of  the 
claims  of  modernity  in  Art  bears  the  first 
brunt  of  the  Old  Masters'  assault,  that  tempts 
you  to  risk  a  rechauffke  of  Paul  Bourget  and 
Walter  Pater,  with  ana  lightly  culled  from 
Symonds,  and,  perchance,  the  questionable 
support  of  ponderous  references  out  of  Burck- 
hardt.  In  spite  of  my  waiver  of  the  title, 


6  Proem 

you  relish  the  notion  of  a  Modern  face  to 
face  with  Botticelli  and  Mantegna  and  Peru- 
gino  (to  say  nothing  of  that  Giotto  who  had 
so  much  to  say!),  artists  in  whom,  you  think 
and  I  agree,  certain  impressions  strangely 
positive  of  many  vanished  aspects  of  life 
remain  to  be  accounted  for,  and  (it  may  be) 
reconciled  with  modern  visions  of  Art  and 
Beauty.  Well !  I  am  flattered  and  touched  by 
such  confidence  in  my  powers  of  expression 
and  your  own  of  endurance.  I  look  upon 
you  as  a  late-in-time  Maecenas,  generously 
resolved  to  defray  the  uttermost  charge  of 
weariness  that  a  young  writer  may  be  encour- 
aged to  unfold  himself  and  splash  in  the 
pellucid  Tuscan  air.  I  cannot  assert  that 
you  are  performing  an  act  of  charity  to  man- 
kind, but  I  can  at  least  assure  you  that  you 
are  doing  more  for  me  than  if  you  had  settled 
my  accounts  with  Messrs.  Cook  &  Sons,  or 
Signora  Vedova  Paolini,  my  esteemed  land- 
lady. A  writer  who  is  worth  anything  accu- 
mulates more  than  he  gives  off,  and  never 
lives  up  to  his  income.  His  difficulty  is  the 
old  one  of  digestion,  Italian  Art  being  as 
crucial  for  the  modern  as  Italian  cookery. 


Proem  7 

Crucial  indeed !  for  diverse  are  the  ways  of 
the  Hyperboreans  cheek  by  jowl  with  asciutta 
and  Tuscan  table-wine,  as  any  osteria  will  con- 
vince you.  To  one  man  the  oil  is  a  delight : 
he  will  soak  himself  in  it  till  his  thought  swims 
viscid  in  his  pate.  To  another  it  is  abhorrent : 
straightway  he  calls  for  his  German  vinegar 
and  drowns  the  native  flavour  in  floods  as  bit- 
ter as  polemics.  Your  wine  too  !  Overweak 
for  water,  says  one,  who  consumes  a  stout 
fiaschone  and  spends  a  stertorous  afternoon  in 
headache  and  cursing  at  the  generous  home- 
grown. Frizzante !  cries  your  next  to  all  his 
gods ;  and  flushes  the  poison  with  infected 
water.  Crucial  enough.  So  with  Art.  Goethe 
went  to  Assisi.  "  I  left  on  my  left,"  says  he, 
"  the  vast  mass  of  churches,  piled  Babel-wise 
one  over  another,  in  one  of  which  rest  the 
remains  of  the  Holy  Saint  Francis  of  Assisi  — 
with  aversion,  for  I  thought  to  myself  that  the 
people  who  assembled  in  them  were  mostly  of 
the  same  stamp  with  my  captain  and  travelling 
companion." 

Truly  an  odd  ground  of  aversion  to  a 
painted  church  that  there  might  be  a  confes- 
sional-box in  the  nave  !  But  he  had  no  eyes 


8  Proem 

for  Gothic,  being  set  on  the  Temple  of  Mi- 
nerva. The  Right  Honourable  Joseph  Addi- 
son's  views  of  Siena  will  be  familiar  to  you ; 
but  an  earlier  still  was  our  excellent  Mr.  John 
Evelyn  doing  the  grand  tour ;  going  to  Pisa, 
but  seeing  no  frescos  in  the  Campo  Santo ; 
going  to  Florence,  but  seeing  neither  Santa 
Croce  nor  Santa  Maria  Novella ;  in  his  whole 
journey  he  would  seem  to  have  found  no 
earlier  name  than  Perugino's  affixed  to  a  pic- 
ture. Goethe  was  urbane  to  Francia,  "  a  very 
respectable  artist ; "  he  was  astonished  at 
Mantegna,  "one  of  the  older  painters,"  but 
accepted  him  as  leading  up  to  Titian :  and  so 
— "  thus  was  art  developed  after  the  barba- 
rous period."  But  Goethe  had  the  sweeping 
sublimity  of  youth  with  him.  "  I  have  now 
seen  but  two  Italian  cities,  and  for  the  first 
time ;  and  I  have  spoken  with  but  few  per- 
sons ;  and  yet  I  know  my  Italians  pretty 
well !  "  Seriously,  where  in  criticism  do  you 
learn  of  an  earlier  painter  than  Perugino, 
until  you  come  to  our  day  ?  And  where  now 
do  you  get  the  raptures  over  the  Carracci  and 
Domenichino  and  Guercino  and  the  rest  of 
them  which  the  last  century  expended  upon 


Proem  9 

their  unthrifty  soil  ?  Ruskin  found  Botticelli ; 
yes,  and  Giotto.  Roscoe  never  so  much  as 
mentions  either.  Why  should  he,  honest  man  ? 
They  could  n't  draw !  Cookery  is  very  like 
Art,  as  Socrates  told  Gorgias.  Unfortunately, 
it  is  far  easier  to  verify  your  impressions  in 
the  former  case  than  in  the  latter.  Yet  that 
is  the  first  and  obvious  duty  of  the  critic  — 
that  is,  the  writer  whomsoever.  In  my  degree 
it  has  been  mine.  Wherefore,  if  I  unfold  any- 
thing at  all,  it  shall  not  be  the  Cicerone  nor 
the  veiled  "Anonymous,"  nor  the  Wiederbele- 
bung,  nor  (I  hope)  the  Mornings  in  Florence, 
but  that  thing  in  which  you  place  such  touch- 
ing reliance  —  myself  and  my  poor  sensations. 
Ecco  !  I  have  nothing  else.  You  take  a  boy 
out  of  school;  you  set  him  to  book-reading, 
give  him  Shakespere  and  a  Bible,  set  him 
sailing  in  the  air  with  the  poets;  drench  him 
with  painter's  dreams,  via>  Titian's  carmine 
and  orange,  Veronese's  rippling  brocades, 
Umbrian  morning  skies,  and  Tuscan  hues 
wrought  of  moon-beams  and  flowing  water  — 
anon  you  turn  him  adrift  in  Italy,  a  country 
where  all  poets'  souls  seem  to  be  caged  in 
crystal  and  set  in  the  sun,  and  say  —  "  Here, 


io  Proem 

dreamer  of  dreams,  what  of  the  day  ? " 
Madonna  !  You  ask  and  you  shall  obtain.  I 
proceed  to  expand  under  your  benevolent  eye. 
To  me,  Italy  is  not  so  much  a  place  where 
pictures  have  been  painted  (some  of  which 
remain  to  testify),  as  a  place  where  pictures 
have  been  lived  and  built.  I  fail  to  see  how 
Perugia  is  not  a  picture  by,  say,  Astorre  Bag- 
Hone.  Perhaps  I  should  be  nearer  the  mark 
if  I  said  it  was  a  frozen  epic.  What  I  mean 
is,  that  in  Italy  it  is  still  impossible  to  sepa- 
rate the  soul  and  body  of  the  soil,  to  say,  as 
you  may  say  in  London  or  Paris,  —  here 
behind  this  sordid  grey  mask  of  warehouses 
and  suburban  villas  lurks  the  soul  that  once 
was  Shakespere  or  once  was  Villon.  You  will 
not  say  that  of  Florence  ;  you  will  hardly  say 
it  (though  the  time  is  at  hand)  of  Milan  and 
Rome.  Do  the  gondoliers  still  sing  snatches 
of  Ariosto  ?  I  don't  know  Venice.  M.  Bourget 
assures  me  his  vetturino  quoted  Dante  to  him 
between  Monte  Pulciano  and  Siena ;  and  I 
believe  him.  At  any  rate,  in  Italy  as  I  have 
found  it,  the  inner  secret  of  Italian  life  can 
be  read,  not  in  painting  alone,  nor  poem 
alone,  but  in  the  swift  sun,  in  the  streets 


Proem  1 1 

and  shrouded  lanes,  in  the  golden  pastures, 
in  the  plains  and  blue  mountains ;  in  flowery 
cloisters  and  carved  church  porches  —  out  of 
doors  as  well  as  in.  The  story  of  Troy  is 
immortal  —  why  not  because  the  Trojans 
themselves  live  immortal  in  their  fabled  sons  ? 
That  being  so,  I  by  no  means  promise  you 
my  sensations  to  be  of  the  ear-measuring, 
nose-rubbing  sort  now  so  popular.  I  am  bad 
at  dates  and  soon  tire  of  symbols.  My  the- 
ology may  be  to  seek ;  you  may  catch  me  as 
much  for  the  world  as  for  Athanase.  With 
world  and  doctor  I  shall,  indeed,  have  little 
enough  to  do,  for  wherever  I  go  I  shall  be 
only  on  the  look-out  for  the  soul  of  this 
bright-eyed  people,  whom,  being  no  Goethe,  I 
do  not  profess  to  understand  or  approve. 
Must  the  lover  do  more  than  love  his  mis- 
tress, and  weave  his  sonnets  about  her  white 
brows  ?  I  may  see  my  mistress  Italy  embow- 
ered in  a  belfry,  a  fresco,  the  scope  of  a 
Piazza,  the  lilt  of  a  Stornello,  the  fragrance  of 
a  legend.  If  I  don't  find  a  legend  to  hand  I 
may,  as  lief  as  not,  invent  one.  It  shall  be  a 
legend  fitted  close  to  the  soul  of  a  fact,  if  I 
succeed :  and  if  I  fail,  put  me  behind  you  and 


12  Proem 

take  down  your  four  volumes  of  Rio,  or  your 
four-and-twenty  of  Rosini.  Go  to  Crowe  and 
Cavalcaselle  and  be  wise.  Parables  !  —  I  like 
the  word  —  to  go  round  about  the  thing, 
whose  heart  I  cannot  hit  with  my  small-arm, 
marking  the  goodly  masses  and  unobtrusive 
meek  beauties  of  it,  and  longing  for  them  in 
vain.  No  amount  of  dissecting  shall  reveal 
the  core  of  Sandro's  Venus.  For  after  you 
have  pared  off  the  husk  of  the  restorer,  or 
bled  in  your  alembic  the  very  juices  the 
craftsman  conjured  withal,  you  come  down  to 
the  seamy  wood,  and  Art  is  gone.  Nay,  but 
your  Morelli,  your  Crowe,  ciphering  as  they 
went  for  want  of  thought,  what  did  they  do 
but  screw  Art  into  test-tubes,  and  serve  you 
up  the  fruit  of  their  litmus-paper  assay  with 
vivacity,  may  be,  —  but  with  what  kinship  to 
the  picture  ?  I  maintain  that  the  peeling  and 
gutting  of  fact  must  be  done  in  the  kitchen  : 
the  king's  guests  are  not  to  know  how  many 
times  the  cook's  finger  went  from  cate  to 
mouth  before  the  seasoning  was  proper  to  the 
table.  The  king  is  the  artist,  you  are  the 
guest,  I  am  the  abstractor  of  quintessences, 
the  cook.  Remember,  the  cook  had  not  the 


Proem  13 

ordering  of  the  feast :  that  was  the  king's 
business  —  mine  is  to  mingle  the  flavours  to 
the  liking  of  the  guest  that  the  dish  be  worthy 
the  conception  and  the  king's  honour. 

Nor  will  I  promise  you  that  I  shall  not 
break  into  a  more  tripping  stave  than  our 
prose  can  afford,  here  and  there.  The  pil- 
grim, if  he  is  young  and  his  shoes  or  his  belly 
pinch  him  not,  sings  as  he  goes,  the  very 
stones  at  his  heels  (so  music-steeped  is  this 
land),  setting  him  the  key.  Jog  the  foot-path 
way  through  Tuscany  in  my  company,  it 's 
Lombard  Street  to  my  hat  I  charm  you  out  of 
your  lassitude  by  my  open  humour.  Things 
I  say  will  have  been  said  before,  and  better; 
my  tunes  may  be  stale  and  my  phrasing  rough  : 
I  may  be  irrelevant,  irreverent,  what  you  please. 
Eh,  well!  I  am  in  Italy,  —  the  land  of  shrugs 
and  laughing.  Shrug  me  (or  my  book)  away  ; 
but,  pray  Heaven,  laugh  !  And,  as  the  young 
are  always  very  wise  when  they  find  their 
voice  and  have  their  confidence  well  put  out 
to  usury,  laugh  (but  in  your  cloak)  when  I 
am  sententious  or  apt  to  tears.  I  have  found 
lacrimce.  rerum  in  Italy  as  elsewhere ;  and 
sometimes  Life  has  seemed  to  me  to  sail  as 


14  Proem 

near  to  tragedy  as  Art  can  do.  I  suppose  I 
must  be  a  very  bad  Christian,  for  I  remain 
sturdily  an  optimist,  still  convinced  that  it  is 
good  for  us  to  be  here,  while  the  sun  is  up. 
Men  and  pictures,  poems,  cities,  churches, 
comely  deeds,  grow  like  cabbages  :  they  are 
of  the  soil,  spring  from  it  to  the  sun,  glow 
open-hearted  while  he  is  there ;  and  when  he 
goes,  they  go.  So  grew  Florence,  and  Shake- 
spere,  and  Greek  myth  —  the  three  most  lovely 
flowers  of  Nature's  seeding  I  know  of.  And 
with  the  flowers  grow  the  weeds.  My  first 
weed  shall  sprout  by  Arno,  in  a  cranny  of  the 
Ponte  Vecchio,  or  cling  like  a  Dryad  of  the 
wood  to  some  gnarly  old  olive  on  the  hill-side 
of  Arcetri.  If  it  bear  no  little  gold-seeded 
flower,  or  if  its  pert  leaves  don't  blush  under 
the  sun's  caress,  it  shan't  be  my  fault  or  the 
sun's. 

Take,  then,  my  watered  wine  in  the  name  of 
the  Second  Maccabaean,  for  here,  as  he  says, 
"  will  I  make  an  end.  And  if  I  have  done 
well,  and  as  is  fitting  the  story,  it  is  that  which 
I  desired :  but  if  slenderly  and  meanly,  it  is 
that  which  I  could  attain  unto." 

I  have  killed  you  at  the  first  cast.     I  feel  it. 


Proem  15 

Has  any  city,  save,  perhaps,  Cairo,  been  so 
written  out  as  Florence  ?  I  hear  you  queru- 
lous ;  you  raise  your  eyebrows ;  you  sigh  as 
you  watch  the  tottering  ash  of  your  second 
cigar.  Mrs.  Brown  comes  to  tell  you  it  is  late. 
I  agree  with  you  quickly.  Florence  has  often 
been  sketched  before  —  putting  Browning  aside 
with  his  astounding  fresco-music  —  by  Ruskin 
and  George  Eliot  and  Mr.  Henry  James,  to 
name  only  masters.  But  that  is  no  reason  why 
I  should  not  try  my  prentice  hand.  Florence 
alters  not  at  all.  Men  do.  My  picture,  poor 
as  you  like,  shall  be  my  own.  It  is  not  their 
Florence  or  yours  —  and,  remember,  I  would 
strike  at  Tuscany  through  Florence,  and 
throughout  Tuscany  keep  my  eye  in  her 
beam,  —  but  my  own  mellow  king-cup  of  a 
town,  the  glowing  heart  of  the  whole  Arno 
basin,  whose  suave  and  weather-warmed  grace 
I  shall  try  to  catch  and  distil.  But  Mrs. 
Brown  is  right ;  it  is  late :  the  huntsmen  are 
up  in  America,  as  your  good  kinsman  has  it, 
and  I  would  never  have  you  act  your  own 
Antipodes.  Addio. 


I 

EYE  OF  ITALY 

HAVE  been  here  a  few  days  only  — 
!  perhaps  a  week :  if  it  Js  impression- 
;  ism  you  're  after,  the  time  is  now  or 
a  year  hence.  For,  in  these  things  of  three 
stages,  two  may  be  tolerable,  the  first  clouding 
of  the  water  with  the  wine's  red  fire,  or  the 
final  resolution  of  the  two  into  one  humane 
consistence  :  the  intermediate  course  is,  like 
all  times  of  process,  brumous  and  hesitant. 
After  a  dinner  in  the  white  piazza,  shrinking 
slowly  to  blue  under  the  keen  young  moon's 
eye,  watched  over  jealously  by  the  frowning 
bulk  of  Brunelleschi's  globe  —  after  a  dinner 
of  pasta  con  brodo,  veal  cutlets,  olives,  and  a 
bottle  of  right  Barbera,  let  me  give  you  a 
pastel  (this  is  the  medium  for  such  evanes- 
cences) of  Florence  herself.  At  present  I 
only  feel.  No  one  should  think  —  few  people 
can  —  after  dinner.  Be  patient  therefore; 
suffer  me  thus  far. 


1 8  Eye  of  Italy 

I  would  spare  you,  if  I  might,  the  horrors 
of  my  night-long  journey  from  Milan.  There 
is  little  romance  in  a  railway :  the  novelists 
have  worked  it  dry.  That  is,  however,  a  part  of 
my  sum  of  perceptions  which  began,  you  may 
put  it,  at  the  dawn  which  saw  Florence  and  me 
face  to  face.  So  I  must  in  no  wise  omit  it. 

I  find,  then,  that  Italian  railway-carriages 
are  constructed  for  the  convenience  of  luggage, 
and  that  passengers  are  an  afterthought,  as 
dogs  or  grooms  are  with  us,  to  be  suffered 
only  if  there  be  room  and  on  condition  they 
look  after  the  luggage.  In  my  case  we  had 
our  full  complement  of  the  staple ;  neverthe- 
less every  passenger  assumed  the  god,  keeping 
watch  on  his  traps,  and  thinking  to  shake  the 
spheres  at  every  fresh  arrival.  Thoughtless 
behaviour !  for  there  were  thus  twelve  people 
packed  into  a  rocky  landscape  of  cardboard 
portmanteaus  and  umbrella-peaks ;  twenty- 
four  legs,  and  urgent  need  of  stretching-room 
as  the  night  wore  on.  There  was  jostling, 
there  was  asperity  from  those  who  could  sleep 
and  those  who  would ;  there  was  more  when 
two  shock-head  drovers  —  like  First  and 
Second  Murderers  in  a  tragedy  —  insisted  on 


Eye  of  Italy  19 

taking  off  their  boots.  It  was  not  that  there 
was  little  room  for  boots ;  indeed  I  think  they 
nursed  them  on  their  thin  knees.  It  was  at 
any  rate  too  much  even  for  an  Italian  passen- 
ger ;  for  —  well,  well !  their  way  had  been  a 
hot  and  a  dusty  one,  poor  fellows.  So  the 
guard  was  summoned,  and  came  with  all  the 
implicit  powers  of  an  uniform  and,  I  believe, 
a  sword.  The  boots  were  strained  on  suffi- 
ciently to  preserve  the  amenities  of  the  way : 
they  could  not,  of  course,  be  what  they  had 
been  ;  the  carriage  was  by  this  a  forcing-house. 
And  through  the  long  night  we  ached  away 
an  intolerable  span  of  time  with,  for  under- 
current, for  sinister  accompaniment  to  the  piti- 
ful strain,  the  muffled  interminable  plodding 
of  the  engine,  and  the  rack  of  the  wheels 
pulsing  through  space  to  the  rhythm  of  some 
music-hall  jingle  heard  in  snatches  at  home. 
At  intervals  came  shocks  of  contrast  when  we 
were  brought  suddenly  face  to  face  with  a 
gaunt  and  bleached  world.  Then  we  stirred 
from  our  stupor,  and  set  to  looking  into  each 
other's  stale  faces.  We  had  shrieked  and 
clanked  our  way  into  some  great  naked  station, 
shivering  raw  and  cold  under  the  electric 


2O  Eye  of  Italy 

lights,  streaked  with  black  shadows  on  its 
whitewash  and  patched  with  coarse  advertise- 
ments. The  porters'  voices  echoed  in  the 
void,  shouting  " Piacenza"  "Parma"  "Reg- 
gio"  "  Modena,"  "Bologna"  with  infinite 
relish  for  the  varied  hues  of  a  final  a.  One  or 
two  cowed  travellers  slippered  up  responsive 
to  the  call,  and  we,  the  veterans  who  endured, 
set  our  teeth,  shuddered,  and  smoked  feverish 
cigarettes  on  the  platform  among  the  carriage- 
wheels  and  points ;  or,  if  we  were  new  hands, 
watched  awfully  the  advent  of  another  sleeping 
train,  as  dingy  as  our  own  —  yet  a  hero  of 
romance  !  For  it  bore  the  hieratic  and  tre- 
mendous words  "Roma,  Firenze,  Milano." 
It  was  privileged  then ;  it  ministered  in  the 
sanctuary.  We  glowed  in  our  sordid  skins, 
and  could  have  kissed  the  foot-boards  that  bore 
the  dust  of  Rome.  I  will  swear  I  shall  never 
see  those  three  words  printed  on  a  carriage 
without  a  thrill.  Roma,  Firenzt,  Milano, — 
Lord  !  what  a  traverse. 

Or  we  held  long  purposeless  rests  at  small 
wayside  places  where  no  station  could  be 
known,  and  the  shrouded  land  stretched  away 
on  either  side,  not  to  be  seen,  but  rather  felt, 


Eye  of  Italy  21 

in  the  cool  airs  that  blew  in,  and  the  rustling 
of  secret  trees  near  by.  No  further  sound 
was,  save  the  muttered  talking  of  the  guards 
without  and  the  simmering  of  the  engine,  on 
somewhere  in  front.  And  then  "  Partenza!" 
rang  out  in  the  night;  and  "Pronti!"  came 
as  a  faint  echo  on  before.  We  laboured  on, 
and  the  dreams  began  where  they  had  broken 
off.  For  we  dreamed  in  these  times,  fitful  and 
lurid,  coloured  dreams ;  flashes  of  horrible 
crises  in  one's  life ;  interminable  precipices ; 
a  river  skiff  engulfed  in  a  swirl  of  green  sea- 
water  ;  agonies  of  repentance ;  shameful  fail- 
ure, defeat,  memories  —  and  then  the  steady 
pulsing  of  the  engine,  and  thick,  impermeable 
darkness  choking  up  the  windows  again. 
How  I  ached  for  the  dawn  ! 

I  awoke  from  what  I  believe  to  have  been  a 
panic  of  snoring  to  hear  the  train  clattering 
over  the  sleepers  and  points,  and  to  see  —  oh, 
human,  brotherly  sight !  —  the  broad  level  light 
of  morning  stream  out  of  the  east.  We  were 
stealing  into  a  city  asleep.  Tall  flat  houses 
rose  in  the  chill  mist  to  our  left  and  stared 
blankly  down  upon  us  with  close-barred  green 
eyelids.  Gas-lamps  in  swept  streets  flickered 


22  Eye  of  Italy 

dirty  yellow  in  the  garish  light.  A  great 
purple  dome  lay  ahead,  flanked  by  the  ruddy 
roofs  and  gables  of  a  long  church.  My  heart 
leapt  for  Florence.  Pistoja  ! 

And  then,  at  Prato,  a  nut-brown  old  woman 
with  a  placid  face  got  into  our  carriage  with  a 
basket  of  green  figs  and  some  bottles  of  milk 
for  the  Florentine  market.  So  we  were  near- 
ing.  And  soon  we  ran  in  between  lines  of 
white  and  pink  villas  edged  with  rows  of 
planes,  drenched  still  with  dews  and  the  night 
mists,  among  bullock-carts  and  queer  shabby 
little  vetture,  everything  looking  light  and  elfin 
in  the  brisk  sunshine  and  autumn  bite  —  into 
the  barrel-like  station,  and  I  into  the  arms,  say 
rather  the  arm-chair,  of  Signora  Vedova  Pao- 
lini,  chattiest  and  most  motherly  of  landladies. 

Earth,  Air,  Fire,  Water,  Florence,  form  the 
five  elements  of  our  planet  according  to  the 
testimony  of  Boniface  VIII.  of  clamant  and 
not  very  Catholic  memory.  That  is  true  if 
you  take  it  this  way.  You  cannot  resolve  an 
element ;  but  you  cannot  resolve  Florence ; 
therefore  Florence  is  an  element.  Ecco  I  She 
is  like  nothing  else  in  Nature,  or  (which  is 
much  the  same  thing)  Art.  You  can  have 


Eye  of  Italy  23 

olives  elsewhere,  and  Gothic  elsewhere ;  you 
can  have  both  at  Aries,  for  instance.  You 
can  have  Campanili  printed  white  (but  not 
rose-and-white,  not  rose-and-gold-and-white)  on 
blue  anywhere  along  the  Mediterranean  from 
Tripoli  to  Tangier:  you  will  find  Giotto  at 
Padua,  and  statues  growing  in  the  open  air 
at  Naples.  But  for  the  silvery  magic  of 
olives  and  blue ;  for  a  Gothic  which  has  the 
supernatural  and  always  restless  eagerness  of 
the  North,  held  in  check,  reduced  to  our  level 
by  the  blessedly  human  sanity  of  Roman- 
esque ;  for  sculpture  which  sprouts  from  the 
crumbling  church-sides  like  some  frankly  happy 
stone-crop,  or  wall-flower,  just  as  wholesomely 
coloured  and  tenderly  shaped,  you  must  come 
to  Florence.  Come  for  choice  in  this  golden 
afternoon  of  the  year.  Green  figs  are  twelve- 
a-penny ;  you  can  get  peaches  for  the  asking, 
and  grapes  and  melons  without ;  brown  men 
are  treading  the  wine-fat  in  every  little  white 
hill-town,  and  in  Florence  itself  you  may 
stumble  upon  them,  as  I  once  did,  plying 
their  mystery  in  a  battered  old  church  —  sight 
only  to  be  seen  in  Italy,  where  religions  have 
been  many,  but  religionists  substantially  the 


24  Eye  of  Italy 

same.  That  is  the  Italian  way ;  there  was 
the  practical  evidence.  Imagine  the  sight.  A 
gaunt  and  empty  old  basilica,  the  beams  of 
the  Rood  still  left,  the  dye  of  fresco  still 
round  the  walls  and  tribune  —  here  the  dim 
figure  of  Sebastian  roped  to  his  tree,  there  the 
cloudy  forms  of  Apostles  or  the  Heavenly 
Host  shadowed  in  masses  of  crimson  or  green 
—  and,  down  below,  a  slippery  purple  sea, 
frothed  sanguine  at  the  edges,  and  wild,  half- 
naked  creatures  treading  out  the  juice,  danc- 
ing in  the  oozy  stuff  rhythmically,  to  the 
music  of  some  wailing  air  of  their  own. 
Saturnia  regna  indeed,  and  in  the  haunt  of 
Sant'  Ambrogio,  or  under  the  hungry  eye  of 
San  Bernardino,  or  other  lean  ascetic  of  the 
Middle  Age.  But  that,  after  all,  is  Italian, 
not  necessarily  Florentine  or  Tuscan.  I  must 
needs  abstract  the  unique  quintessential  hu- 
mours of  this  my  eye  of  Italy.  Stendhal,  do 
you  remember  ?  did  n't  like  one  of  these.  He 
said  that  in  Florence  people  talked  about 
"  huesta  hasa  "  when  they  would  say  "  questa 
casa,"  and  thus  turned  Italian  into  a  mad 
Arabic.  So  they  do,  especially  the  women : 
why  not?  The  poor  Stendhal  loved  Milan, 


Eye  of  Italy  25 

wrote  himself  down  "Arrigo  Milanese  " — and 
what  can  you  expect  from  a  Milanese  ? 

They  tell  me,  who  know  Florence  well,  that 
she  is  growing  unwieldy.  Like  a  bulky  old  con- 
cierge, they  say,  she  sits  in  the  passage  of  her 
Arno,  swollen,  fat,  and  featureless,  a  kind  of 
Chicago,  a  city  of  tame  conveniences  ungraced 
by  arts.  That  means  that  there  are  suburbs 
and  tramways ;  it  means  that  the  gates  will 
not  hold  her  in ;  it  has  a  furtive  stab  at  the 
Railway  Station  and  the  omnibus  in  the 
Piazza  del  Duomo :  it  is  Mornings  in  Florence. 
The  suggestion  is  that  Art  is  some  pale 
remote  virgin  who  must  needs  shiver  and 
withdraw  at  the  touch  of  actual  life :  the  art- 
lover  must  maunder  over  his  mistress's  wrongs 
instead  of  manfully  insisting  upon  her  rights, 
her  everlasting  triumphant  justifications.  Why 
this  watery  talk  of  an  Art  that  was  and  may 
not  be  again,  because  we  go  to  bed  by  electric- 
ity and  have  our  hair  brushed  by  machinery  ? 
Pray  has  Nature  ceased  ?  or  Life  ?  Art  will 
endure  with  these  fine  things,  which  in  Flor- 
ence, let  me  say,  are  very  fine  indeed.  But 
there  's  a  practical  answer  to  the  indictment. 
As  a  city  she  is  a  mere  cupful.  You  can  walk 


26  Eye  of  Italy 

from  Cantagalli's,  at  the  Roman  Gate,  to  the 
Porta  San  Gallo,  at  the  end  of  the  Via  Cavour, 
in  about  the  time  it  would  take  you  to  go  from 
Newgate  to  Kensington  Gardens.  Yet  whereas 
in  London  such  a  walk  would  lead  you  through 
a  slice  of  a  section,  in  Florence  you  would  cut 
through  the  whole  city  from  hill  to  hill.  You 
are  never  away  from  the  velvet  flanks  of  the 
Tuscan  hills.  Every  street-end  smiles  an  en- 
chanting vista  upon  you.  Houses  frowning, 
machicolated  and  sombre,  or  gay  and  golden- 
white  with  cool  green  jalousies  and  spreading 
eaves,  stretch  before  you  through  mellow  air 
to  a  distance  where  they  melt  into  hills,  and 
hills  into  sky;  into  sky  so  clear  and  rarely 
blue,  so  virgin  pale  at  the  horizon,  that  the 
hills  sleep  brown  upon  it  under  the  sun,  and 
the  cypresses,  nodding  a-row,  seem  funeral 
weeds  beside  that  radiant  purity.  Some  such 
adorable  stretch  of  tilth  and  pasture,  sky  and 
cloud,  hangs  like  a  god's  crown  beyond  the 
city  and  her  towers.  In  the  long  autumn  twi- 
light Fiesole  and  the  hills  lie  soft  and  purple 
below  a  pale  green  sky.  There  is  a  pause  at 
this  time  when  the  air  seems  washed  for  sleep 
—  every  shrub,  every  feature  of  the  landscape 


Eye  of  Italy  27 

is  cut  clean  as  with  a  blade.  The  light  dies, 
the  air  deepens  to  wet  violet,  and  the  glimpses 
of  the  hill-town  gleam  like  snow.  At  such 
times  Samminiato  looms  ghostly  upon  you 
and  fades  slowly  out.  The  flush  in  the  East 
faints  and  fails  and  the  evening  star  shines 
like  a  gem.  It  is  hot  and  still  in  the  broad 
Piazza  Santa  Maria;  they  are  lighting  the 
lamps ;  the  swarm  grows  of  the  eager,  shabby, 
spendthrift  crowd  of  young  Italians,  so  light- 
hearted  and  fluent,  and  so  prodigal  of  this  old 
Italy  of  theirs  —  and  ours.  All  this  I  have 
been  watching  as  I  might.  Nature  clings  to 
the  city,  playing  her  rhythmic  dance  at  the 
end  of  every  street. 

Nature  clings.  Yes ;  but  she  is  within  as 
well  as  without.  What  is  that  sentimental 
platitude  of  somebody's  (the  worst  kind  of 
platitude,  is  it  not  ? )  about  the  sun  being  to 
flowers  what  Art  is  to  Life  ?  It  has  the  further 
distinction  of  being  untrue.  In  Florence  you 
learn  that  what  he  is  to  flowers,  that  he  is  to 
Art.  For  I  soberly  believe  that  under  his 
rays  Florence  has  grown  open  like  some  rare 
white  water-lily ;  that  sun  and  sky  have  set  the 
conditions,  struck,  as  it  were,  the  chord.  I 


28  Eye  of  Italy 

have  wandered  through  and  through  her 
recessed  ways  the  length  of  this  bright  and 
breezy  October  week ;  and  have  marked 
where  I  walked  the  sun's  great  hand  laid  upon 
palace  and  cloister  and  bell-tower.  He  has 
summoned  up  these  flat-topped  houses,  these 
precipitous  walls  beneath  which  winds  the 
darkened  causeway.  One  seems  to  be  trav- 
elling in  a  mountain  gorge  with,  above,  a  thin 
ribbon  of  sky,  fluid  blue,  flawless  of  cloud, 
like  the  sea.  He,  that  so  masterful  sun,  has 
given  Florence  the  apathetic,  beaten  aspect  of 
a  southern  town ;  he  and  the  temperate  sky 
have  fixed  the  tone  for  ever ;  and  the  nimble 
air  —  "  nimbly  and  sweetly  "  recommending 
itself  —  has  given  the  quaintness  and  the 
freaksomeness  of  the  North.  This  bursts  out, 
young  and  irresponsible,  in  pinnacle,  crocket, 
and  gable,  in  towers  like  spears,  and  in  the 
eager  lancet  windows  which  peer  upwards  out 
of  Orsammichele  and  the  Dominican  Church. 
This  mixture  is  Florence  and  has  made  her 
art.  The  blue  of  the  sky  gives  the  key  to  her 
palette,  the  breath  of  the  west  wind,  the  salt 
wind  from  our  own  Atlantic,  tingles  in  her 
campanili ;  and  the  Italian  sun  washes  over 


Eye  of  Italy  29 

all  with  his  lazy  gold.  -  Habit  and  inclination 
both  speak.  She  rejects  no  wise  thing  and 
accepts  every  lovely  thing.  Nature  and  Art 
have  worked  hand  in  hand,  as  they  will  when 
we  let  them.  For  what  is  an  art  so  inimitable, 
so  innocent,  so  intimate  as  this  of  Tuscany, 
after  all,  but  a  high  effort  of  creative  Nature  — 
Natura  naturans,  as  Spinosa  calls  her  ?  Here, 
on  the  weather-fretted  walls,  a  Delia  Robbia 
blossoms  out  in  natural  colours  —  blue  and 
white  and  green.  They  are  Spring's  colours. 
You  need  not  go  into  the  Bargello  to  under- 
stand Luca  and  Andrea  at  their  happy  task ; 
as  well  go  to  a  botanical  museum  to  read  the 
secret  of  April.  See  them  on  the  dusty  wall 
of  Orsammichele.  They  have  wrought  the 
blossom  of  the  stone  —  clusters  of  bright-eyed 
flowers  with  the  throats  and  eyes  of  angels, 
singing,  you  might  say,  a  children's  hymn  to 
Our  Lady,  throned  and  pure  in  the  midst  of 
the  bevy.  See  the  Spedale  degli  Innocenti, 
where  a  score  of  little  flowery  white  children 
grow,  open-armed,  out  of  their  sky-blue  medal- 
lions. Really,  are  they  lilies,  or  children,  or 
the  embodied  strophes  of  a  psalter  ?  you  ask. 
I  mix  my  metaphors  like  an  Irishman,  but  you 


30  Eye  of  Italy 

will  see  my  meaning.  All  the  arts  blend  in 
art :  "  rien  ne  fait  mieux  entendre  combien  un 
faux  sonnet  est  ridicule  que  de  s'imaginer  une 
femme  ou  une  maison  faite  sur  ce  modele- 
la."  Pascal  knew  ;  and  so  did  Philip  Sidney. 
"  Nature  never  set  forth  the  earth  in  so  rich 
tapestry  as  divers  poets  have  done ;  "  and  the 
nearer  truth  seems  to  be  that  Art  is  Nature 
made  articulate,  Nature's  soul  inflamed  with 
love  and  voicing  her  secrets  through  one  man 
to  many.  So  there  may  be  no  difference 
between  me  and  a  cabbage-rose  but  this,  that 
I  can  consider  my  own  flower,  how  it  grows, 
or  rather,  when  it  is  grown. 

It  is  very  pleasant  sometimes  to  think  that 
wistful  guess  of  Plato's  true  in  spite  of  every- 
thing —  that  the  state  is  the  man  grown  great, 
as  the  universe  is  the  state  grown  infinite.  It 
explains  that  Florence  has  a  soul,  the  broader 
image  of  her  sons',  and  that  this  soul  speaks 
in  Art,  utters  itself  in  flower  of  stone  and 
starry  stretches  of  fresco  (like  that  serene 
blue  and  grey  band  in  the  Sistine  chapel 
which  redeems  so  many  of  Rome's  waste 
places),  sings  colour-songs  (there  are  such 
affairs)  on  church  and  cloister  walls.  Seeing 


Eye  of  Italy  31 

these  good  things,  we  should  rather  hear  the 
town's  voice  crying  out  her  fancy  to  friendly 
hearts.  Thus  —  let  me  run  the  figure  to 
death  —  if  Luca's  blue-eyed  medallions  are 
the  crop  of  the  wall,  they  are  also  the  soul  of 
Florence,  singing  a  blithe  secular  song  about 
gods  whose  abiding  charm  is  the  art  that  made 
them  live.  And  if  the  towers  and  domes  are 
the  statelier  flowers  of  the  garden,  lily,  holly- 
hock, tulip  of  the  red  globe,  so  they  are 
Florence  again  as  she  strains  forward  and  up, 
sternly  defiant  in  the  Palazzo  Vecchio,  bright 
and  curious  at  Santa  Croce,  pure,  chaste  as 
a  seraph,  when,  thrilling  with  the  touch  of 
Giotto,  she  gazes  in  the  clarity  of  her  golden 
and  rosy  marbles,  tinted  like  a  pearl  and 
shaped  like  an  archangel,  towards  the  blue 
vault  whose  eye  she  is. 

Wandering,  therefore,  through  this  high 
city ;  loitering  on  the  bridge  whereunder  tur- 
bid Arno  glitters  like  brass ;  standing  by  the 
yellow  Baptistery ;  or  seeing  in  Santa  Croce 
cloister  —  where  I  write  these  lines  —  seven 
centuries  of  enthusiasm  mellowed  down  by 
sun  and  wind  into  a  comely  dotage  of  grey 
and  green,  one  is  disposed  to  wonder  whether 


32  Eye  of  Italy 

we  are  only  just  beginning  to  understand  Art, 
or  to  misunderstand  it  ?  Has  the  world  slept 
for  two  thousand  years  ?  Is  Degas  the  first 
artist  ?  Was  Aristotle  the  first  critic,  and  is 
Mr.  George  Moore  the  second  ?  As  a  white 
pigeon  cuts  the  blue,  and  every  pinion  of  him 
shines  as  burnished  agate  in  the  live  air,  things 
shape  themselves  somewhat.  I  begin  to  see 
that  Art  />,  and  that  men  have  been,  and  shall 
be,  but  never  are.  Facts  are  an  integral  part 
of  life,  but  they  are  not  life.  I  heard  a  meta- 
physician say  once  that  matter  was  the  adjec- 
tive of  life,  and  thought  it  a  mighty  pretty 
saying.  In  a  true  sense,  it  would  seem,  Art 
is  that  adjective.  For  so  surely  as  there  are 
honest  men  to  insist  how  true  things  are  or 
how  proper  to  moralising,  there  will  be  Art  to 
sing  how  lovely  they  are,  and  what  amiable 
dwellings  for  us.  Thus  fortified,  I  think  I 
can  understand  Magister  Joctus  Fiorentiae. 
He  lies  behind  these  crumbling  walls.  Traces 
of  his  crimson  and  blue  still  stain  the  cloister- 
walk.  What  was  he  telling  us  in  crimson  and 
blue  ?  How  dumb  Zacharias  spelt  out  the 
name  of  his  son  John  in  the  roll  of  a  book  ? 
Hardly  that,  I  think. 


II 

LITTLE  FLOWERS 

HE  Via  del  Monte  alle  Croce  is  a 
i  leafy  way  cut  between  hedgerows,  in 

the  morning  time  heavy  with  dew 
and  the  smell  of  wet  flowers.  Where  it  strays 
out  of  the  Gira  al  Monte  there  is  a  crumbly 
brick  wall,  a  well,  and  a  little  earthen  shrine 
to  Madonna  —  a  daub,  it  is  true,  of  glaring 
chromes  and  blues,  thick  in  glaze  and  tawdry 
devices  of  stout  cupids  and  roses,  but  some- 
how, on  this  suggestive  Autumn  morning, 
innocent  and  blue  of  eye  as  the  carolling 
throngs  of  Luca  which  it  travesties.  And  a 
pious  inscription  cut  below  testifieth  how  Saint 
Francis,  "  in  friendly  talk  with  the  Blessed 
Mariano  di  Lugo,"  paused  here  before  it,  and 
then  vanished.  It  is  not  necessary  to  believe 
in  ghosts  ;  but  I  '11  go  bail  that  story  is  true. 
We  are  but  two  stones'  throw  from  the  gaunt 
hulk  of  a  Franciscan  Church  ;  a  file  of  dusty 


34  Little  Flowers 

cypresses  marks  the  ruins  of  a  painful  Calvary 
cut  in  the  waste  and  shale  of  the  hill-side. 
Below,  as  in  a  green  pasture,  Florence  shines 
like  a  dove's  egg  in  her  nest  of  hills ;  I  can 
pick  out  among  the  sheaf  of  spears  which 
hedge  her  about  the  daintiest  of  them  all,  the 
crocketted  pinnacle  of  Santa  Croce,  grey  on 
blue ;  and  then  the  lean  ridge  of  a  shrine  the 
barest,  simplest  and  most  honest  in  all  Tus- 
cany. Certainly  Saint  Francis,  "familiar- 
mente  discorrendo,"  appeared  in  this  place.  I 
need  no  reference  to  the  Annals  of  the  Seraphic 
Order  —  part,  book  and  page  —  to  convince 
me.  My  stone  gives  them.  "  Ann.  Ord.  Min. 
Tom.  cclii.  fasc.  3.,"  and  so  on.  That  is  but 
a  sorry  concession  to  our  short-sightedness. 
For  if  we  believe  not  the  shrine  which  we 
have  seen,  how  shall  we  believe  Giotto  ?  What 
of  Giotto  ?  That  is  my  point. 

Something  too  much,  it  may  be,  of  modern 
art-criticism,  which  is  ashamed  of  thinking, 
snuifeth  at  pictures  which  tell  you  things,  at 
literature  in  books  or  music  or  church  orna- 
ment. Is  literature  not  good  anywhere? 
Have  we  exhausted  the  Arabian  Nights  or 
the  Act  a  Sanctorum  ?  At  any  rate,  if  we  must 


Little  Flowers  35 

choose  between  Giotto  and  the  prophet  of  the 
Yellow  Book,  my  heart  is  fixed.  I  am  for  the 
teller  of  tales.  Story-telling  it  is,  glorification 
of  one  whom  Mr.  George  Moore  would  call 
(has,  indeed,  called)  a  "squint-eyed  Italian 
Saint "  —  and  whether  he  objected  to  mal- 
formity,  nationality  or  calling,  I  never  could 
learn  —  this  too  it  may  be ;  it  may  tend  to 
edification  and  I  know  not  what  beside.  I 
will  grant  all  that.  And  though  it  is  hard  to 
prophesy  what  might  have  happened  five  hun- 
dred years  ago ;  though  there  might  have  been 
a  Giotto  without  a  Francis  of  whom  to  speak ; 
yet  I  never  knew  a  case  where  a  painter  (call 
him  poet  if  you  will ;  he  will  be  none  the 
worse  for  that)  fell  so  directly  into  the  gap 
awaiting  him.  The  Gospel  living  and  tangible 
again  !  Spirits,  apparitions,  as  of  three  mys- 
terious sisters,  met  you  in  the  open  country, 
and  crying  "  Hail !  Lady  Poverty,"  straightly 
vanished.  A  legend  was  a-making  round 
about  the  strange  life  not  fifty  years  closed,  a 
life  which  seems,  extravagance  apart,  to  have 
been  a  lyrical  outburst,  a  strophe  in  the  hymn 
of  praise  which  certain  happy  people  were 
singing  just  then.  It  was  a  Gloria  in  Excclsis 


36  Little  Flowers 

for  a  second  time  in  Christian  Annals  which 
did  not  end  in  a  wail  of  "  Agnus  Dei  qui  tollis 
peccata,  miserere."  Why  should  it  ?  Should 
the  children  of  the  bride-chamber  fast  when 
the  bridegroom  was  with  them  ?  And  of  all 
the  "wreath'd  singers  at  the  marriage-door," 
blithest  and  sanest  was  Master  Joctus  of 
Florence.  This  being  so,  I  hope  I  shall  not 
be  accused  of  any  mischief  if  I  say  that  in 
Giotto  I  see  one  of  the  select  company  of 
immortals  whose  work  can  never  be  surpassed 
because  it  is  entirely  adequate  to  the  facts  and 
atmosphere  he  selected.  The  standard  of  a 
work  of  art  must  always  be  —  Is  it  well  done  ? 
rather  than  —  Is  it  well  intentioned  ?  Where- 
fore, if  Giotto  or  anybody  else  choose  to  spend 
himself  upon  a  sermon  or  an  essay  or  an  arti- 
cle of  the  Creed,  and  do  well  thereby,  I  may 
not  blame  him,  nor  call  him  back  to  study  the 
play  of  light  across  a  marsh  or  the  flight  of 
pigeons  in  the  westering  sun.  Ma  basta, 
basta  cosi,  you  may  say  with  the  Cavaliere  of 
Goldoni. 

Santa  Croce  church  is  of  the  barrack-room 
stamp,  dim  and  enormous,  grey  with  years  and 
seamed  with  work.  Its  impressiveness  (for 


Little  Flowers  37 

with  Orvieto  and  a  fleet  of  churches  at  Ra- 
venna it  stands  above  all  Italy  in  that)  consists 
mainly,  I  believe,  in  its  being  built  of  exactly 
the  moral  bones  of  the  religion  it  was  intended 
to  embody.  An  Italian  religion,  namely  ;  per- 
fectly sane,  at  bottom  practical,  with  a  base 
of  plain,  every-day,  ten-commandment  moral- 
ity. That  was  the  base  of  Saint  Francis'  good 
brown  life  :  therefore  Santa  Croce  is  admira- 
bly built,  squared,  mortised  and  compacted  by 
skilled  workmen  to  whom  bricklaying  was  a 
fine  art.  But,  withal,  this  religion  had  its 
lyric  raptures,  its  "  In  fuoco  Amor  mi  mise," 
or  its  sobbing  at  the  feet  of  the  Crucified, 
its  Corotto  and  Seven  Sorrowful  Mysteries : 
accordingly  Santa  Croce,  like  a  pollarded  lime, 
reserves  its  buds,  harbours  and  garners  them, 
throws  out  no  suckers  or  lateral  adornments 
the  length  of  its  trunk,  but  bursts  into  a  flowery 
crown  of  them  at  the  top  —  a  whole  row  of 
chapels  along  the  cross-beam  of  the  tau  ;  and 
in  the  place  of  honour  a  shallow  apse  pierced 
with  red  lancets  and  aglow  like  an  opal. 
Never  a  chapel  of  them  but  is  worth  study 
and  a  stiff  neck.  After  the  Rule  came  the 
Fioretti  ;  after  Francis  and  Bonaventure  came 


38  Little  Flowers 

Celano  and  Jacopone  da  Todi :  after  Arnolfo 
del  Lapo  and  his  attention  to  business  came 
the  hours  of  ease  when  he  planned  the  airy 
plume  on  which  the  campanile  leaps  skyward ; 
and  came  also  Giotto  to  weave  the  crown  of 
Santa  Croce. 

I  take  the  Tuscan  nature  to  be  so  consti- 
tuted that  it  will  play  with  any  given  subject 
of  speculation  in  much  the  same  way.  With 
one  or  two  mighty  exceptions  to  be  sure  — 
Dante,  of  course,  Buonarroti  of  course,  and, 
for  all  his  secularities,  Boccace  —  it  is  not 
imagination  you  find  in  Tuscany.  Rather,  a 
sweet  and  delicate,  a  wholesome,  a  home-grown 
fancy  wantoning  with  thought  which  may  be 
unpleasant,  unhealthy,  grave,  frivolous  —  what 
you  will ;  yet  playing  in  such  a  way,  and  with 
such  intuitive  taste  and  breeding  that  no  harm 
ensues  nor  any  nausea.  They  realise  for  me 
a  fairy  country ;  I  can  think  no  evil  of  a 
Tuscan.  So  I  can  read  Boccace  the  infidel, 
Boccace  the  gross,  where  Voltaire  makes  me  a 
bigot  and  Catulle  Mendes  ashamed.  The 
fresh  breeze  blowing  through  the  Decameron 
keeps  the  air  sweet.  Even  Lorenzo  is  a  child 
for  me,  and  Macchiavel,  "the  man  without  a 


Little  Flowers  39 

soul,"  I  decline  to  take  seriously.  Consider, 
then,  all  Tuscan  art  from  this  point  of  view, 
the  weaving  of  innocent  fancies  round  some 
chance-caught  theme.  Christianity  may  have 
been  the  point  tfappui.  No  doubt  it  generally 
was.  What  then  ?  Have  you  never  heard 
two  children  dreaming  aloud  of  the  ways  of 
God,  or  the  troubles  of  Christ?  How  they 
humanise,  how  they  realise  the  Mystery! 
Just  such  a  pretty  babble  I  find  in  the  Spanish 
Chapel,  which  to  take  in  any  other  spirit 
would  work  a  madness  in  the  brain.  You 
remember  the  North  wall,  apotheosis  of  Saint 
Thomas  and  what-not,  for  all  the  world  like  a 
paradigm  of  the  irregular  verb  "  Aquinizo." 
What  are  we  to  suppose  Lippo  Memmi  (or 
whoever  else  it  was)  to  have  been  about  when 
he  hung  in  mid-air  on  his  swinging  bridge  and 
stained  the  wet  square  red  and  green  ?  To 
read  Ruskin  you  would  think  he  was  fulminat- 
ing urbi  et  orbi  with  the  Summa  or  Cur  Deus 
homo  at  his  fingers'  ends.  Depend  upon  it  he 
was  doing  quite  other,  or  the  artistic  temper 
(phrase  rendered  loathsome  by  the  halfpenny 
newspapers)  suffered  a  relapse  between  the 
days  of  King  David  and  the  days  of  his  brother 


40  Little  Flowers 

Lippo  Lippi.  Are  we  to  suppose  that  a  man 
who  could  live  in  intimate  commerce  with 
fourteen  such  gracious  ladies  as  he  has  set 
there,  ranged  on  their  carved  Sedilia  —  his 
Britomart  trim  and  debonnair ;  his  willowy 
Carita ;  his  wimpled  matron  in  clean  white 
who  masquerades  as  I  know  not  what  branch 
of  theology  ;  his  pretty  girlish  Geometry  of 
coiled  and  braided  hair  and  the  yet  unloosed 
girdle  of  demure  virginity ;  his  maid  Musica 
crowned  with  roses,  and  Logica,  the  bold-eyed 
and  open-throated  wench,  hand  to  hip  —  is  this 
the  man  for  sententiousness  ?  Out,  out !  Could 
anyone  save  a  humourist  of  high  order  have 
given  Moses  such  a  pair  of  horns,  or  set, 
under  Music,  such  a  shagged  Tubal  to 
belabour  an  anvil  ?  The  wall  sings  like  an 
anthology,  —  a  Gothic  anthology  where  "  Bele 
Aliz  matin  leva "  is  versicle,  and  "  In  un 
boschetto  trovai  pastorella  "  antiphon.  You 
might  as  well  talk  of  Christian  Mathematics 
as  of  Christian  Art,  or  bind  the  sweet  influ- 
ences of  Pleiades  as  the  volant  sallies  of  a 
poet's  wit. 

Once  we  get  it  into  our  heads  that  the  Tus- 
cans were  fanciful  children,  always,  and  the 


Little  Flowers  41 

discrepancy  of  critics,  of  Ruskin,  and  Mr. 
George  Moore,  or  Rio  and  Mr.  Addington 
Symonds,  may  vanish.  For  another  thing,  we 
shall  understand  and  allow  for  the  standard 
of  Santa  Croce  and  the  Fioretti.  From  the 
latter  nosegay  I  take  this  : 

"It  happened  one  day  as  Brother  Peter 
was  standing  to  his  prayer,  thinking  earnestly 
about  the  Passion  of  Christ,  how  the  blessed 
Mother  of  him,  and  John  Evangelist  his  best- 
beloved,  and  Saint  Francis  too,  were  painted 
at  the  foot  of  the  Cross,  crucified  indeed  with 
him  through  anguish  of  the  mind,  that  there 
came  upon  him  the  longing  to  know  which  of 
these  three  had  endured  the  bitterest  pains  of 
that  anguish,  the  Mother  who  bore  our  Lord, 
or  the  Disciple  familiar  to  his  bosom,  or  Saint 
Francis  crucified  also  even  as  he  was.  And 
as  he  stood  thinking  on  these  things,  lo ! 
there  appeared  before  him  the  Virgin  Mary 
with  Saint  John  Evangelist  and  Saint  Francis, 
robed  in  splendid  apparel  and  of  glory  won- 
derful ;  but  Saint  Francis'  robe  was  more 
cunningly  wrought  than  Saint  John's.  Now 
Peter  stood  quite  scared  at  the  sight ;  but 
Saint  John  bade  him  take  comfort,  saying,  '  Be 


42  Little  Flowers 

not  afraid,  dearest  brother,  for  we  are  come 
hither  to  dispel  thy  doubt.  You  are  to  know, 
then,  that  above  all  creatures  the  Mother  of 
Christ  and  I  grieved  over  the  Passion  of  our 
Lord.  But  since  that  day  Saint  Francis  has 
felt  more  anguish  than  any  other.  Therefore, 
as  you  see,  he  is  in  glory  now.'  Then  Brother 
Peter  asked  him,  and  said,  '  Most  holy  Apos- 
tle of  Christ,  wherefore  cometh  it  that  the 
vesture  of  Saint  Francis  is  more  glorious  than 
thine  ? '  Answered  him  Saint  John,  '  The 
reason  is  this,  for  that  when  he  was  in  the 
world  he  wore  a  viler  than  ever  I  did.'  So 
then  Saint  John  gave  him  a  vestment  which 
he  carried  on  his  arm,  and  the  holy  company 
vanished." 

This,  be  sure,  is  true ;  and  I  have  its  Eng- 
lish parallel  ready  to  hand.  For  I  once  heard 
a  father  and  his  child  talking  of  the  goodness 
of  God.  "  God,"  says  the  father,  "  gives  thee 
the  milk  to  thy  porridge ; "  and  the  child 
thought  it  a  good  saying,  yet  puzzled  over  it, 
doubting,  as  it  afterwards  appeared,  the  part 
to  be  assigned  to  a  friend  of  his,  the  daily 
milkman.  And  so  he  solved  it.  "  God  makes 
the  milk  and  the  milkman  brings  it,"  he  said. 


Little  Flowers  43 

The  Fioretti,  if  you  must  needs  break  a  but- 
terfly on  your  dissecting-board,  was  written, 
as  I  judge,  by  a  bare-foot  Minorite  of  forty ; 
compiled,  that  is,  from  the  wonderings,  the 
pretty  adjustments  and  naive  disquisitions  of 
any  such  weather-worn  brown  men  as  you 
may  see  to-day  toiling  up  the  Calvary  to  their 
Convent.  And  in  this  same  story-telling  Giotto 
is  an  adept.  He  loves  to  gather  his  fellows 
round  him  and  speak  of  Saints  and  Arch- 
angels, where  our  youngsters  talk  of  fairy 
godmothers  and  white  rabbits.  To  say  this  is 
not  Art,  as  the  critics  profanely  teach,  is  mon- 
strous. Is  not  the  Fioretti  literature,  or  the 
Gospel  according  to  Saint  Luke  literature  ? 
And  is  not  Religion  the  highest  art  of  all, 
the  large  elementary  poetry  at  the  core  of  the 
heart  of  man  ?  Just  so  was  the  craft  which 
disposed  the  rings  of  that  wonderful  ornament 
round  about  the  Bardi  chapel,  rings  of  clean 
arabesque  wrought  in  line  upon  pale  blue  and 
pink  and  brown,  and  which  in  so  doing  fitted 
the  Franciscan  thaumaturgy  with  an  exact 
garment  tenderly  adjusted  to  every  wave  of 
its  abandonment  —  even  so  was  this  a  great 
art  indeed.  For  you  ask  of  an  art  no  more 


44  Little  Flowers 

than  this,  that  it  shall  be  adequately  represen- 
tative :  there  are  no  comparative  degrees. 

So  when  I  learn  from  the  works  of  Ruskin 
that  he  can  "  read  a  picture  to  you  as,  if  Mr. 
Spurgeon  knew  anything  about  art,  Mr.  Spur- 
geon  would  read  it,  —  that  is  to  say,  from  the 
plain,  common-sense  Protestant  side ; "  or 
when  I  learn  from  the  works  of  Mr.  George 
Moore  that  Sir  Frederick  Burton  made  of  the 
National  Gallery  a  Museum ;  or  when  one 
complains  of  a  picture  that  it  is  not  didactic, 
and  another  that  it  holds  a  thought,  I  make 
haste  to  laugh  lest  I  should  do  wrong  to  Tus- 
cany, that  looked  upon  the  world  to  love  it : 
for  she  saw  that  it  was  very  good. 


Ill 

OF    SHEEP-SHEARERS 

Scene  —  Florence :  the  nave  of  the  Duomo 

SMERALDA,  BERNARDO 

Smer.  High  doctrine,  Lord  Bernardo.  See 
you  that  country  girl  yonder  ? 

Ber.  Surely.  The  little  wistful  mother  spying 
for  God  in  her  first-born.  Well  ? 

Smer.  Has  there  been  any  trifling  there,  think 
you  ? 

Ber.  Truth,  Madam,  I  cannot  tell.  'T  is  very 
like,  God  knows.  Woman  gives  and  man 's 
a  knave,  often  as  not.  Yet  we  in  Genoa 
have  Motherhood  in  high  esteem.  We 
hold  it  covereth  sin,  —  or,  indeed,  lifteth 
out  of  the  fumes  of  it.  The  theme  is 
sorry  —  sorry.  I  beseech  you  pass  it  by. 

Smer.  In  Florence  we  indite  sonnets  to  such 
themes,  wherein  sorrow  doth  breed  a 
curious  hankering  after  secrets.  O,  the 
plague-spot !  Save  you,  gentlemen. 


46  Of  Sheep-Shearers 

Enter  Agnolo  Poliziano  and  Luca  Signorelli. 

Carry  your  cross  thither,  Bernardo. 
They  will  at  least  set  it  square  on  your 
shoulders. 

Agn.  I  kiss  your  hands,  Madonna.  Signer 
Bernardo,  I  stand  as  one  who  would  serve 
you  where  he  might.  Master  Luca,  you 
must  know  this  gentleman,  the  Count 
Bernardo,  potent  in  Genoa. 

Luca.  Does  Genoa,  then,  hatch  arrows  ? 

Ber.  Oh,  expound,  sir,  expound  !  Genoa  does 
not  hatch  answers  to  riddles. 

Luca.  Are  you  brother  to  that  shaft  of  beauty 
that  late  transfixed  us  ?  You  are  marvel- 
lous alike  in  bearing. 

Smer.  Such  homage  should  move  you,  my 
lord.  Here  is  another  devotee. 

Ber.  Ah !  I  thank  you,  worthy  sir,  for  that 
excellent  lady.  I  dare  not  claim  her 
kindred. 

Luca.  You  might  claim  to  a  better  purpose 
than  a  blood-tie,  young  lord,  with  your 
look  of  ask-and-have,  your  breadth  of 
thorax.  Best  catch  the  hour,  best  catch 
the  hour :  we  Ve  gallants  in  Florence 


Of  Sheep-Shearers  47 

apt  to  the  trick  of  it.  My  Agnolo,  you 
have  seen  this  shapely  maid  ?  I  tell  you 
a  flush'd  goddess.  Fire  from  heaven ! 
Would  I  had  the  painting  of  her.  You 
should  not  miss  the  goddess,  I  engage. 

Smer.  Would  you  set  her  up  a  goddess  to  the 
life  ?  To  the  tumbling  of  her  shift  ? 

Luca.  Madam  Smeralda,  I  would  paint  the 
god  in  the  life  of  her,  in  the  youth  and 
ardour  of  her.  "  Ye  shall  be  as  gods," 
quoth  the  book.  I  tell  you,  gods  are 
ye  already,  you  clean-limbed  striplings. 
And  as  such  I  could  depict  you  and  no 
other  man  breathing.  There 's  a  man 
now  in  our  city  —  I  think  Pieve  had  the 
hatching  of  him,  and  Perugia  't  was  taught 
him  to  fly  —  who  will  limn  your  gods  as 
men,  a  trick  proper  enough  for  a  chapter 
of  nuns.  For  me,  I  take  no  such  journey- 
man work.  An  explorer  am  I,  anatomist, 
leech  as  my  patron  was,  good  Luke  of 
Galilee.  For,  look  you,  I  will  apply  my 
simples  to  your  frame,  smear  you  from 
crown  to  base,  and  draw  you  thence  a 
clean  god  from  what  was  most  vile  man. 
Witchery  ?  No ;  but  a  knack  of  judg- 


48  Of  Sheep-Shearers 

ment ;  a  kind  of  bargaining  between  my 
hand  and  pair  of  eyes.  Call  me  exorcist, 
diviner,  as  you  will,  I  say  I  am  a  sheep- 
shearer.  For  the  painter's  craft  is  not  to 
add  but  to  shred  away.  Do  you  take  me 
there,  Master  Genoese  ? 

Ber.  In  part,  sir,  in  part.  You  are,  as  I  con- 
ceive, a  delver  like  good  Master  Adam, 
our  honest  parent.  I  could  wish  you 
delve  to  as  true  purpose.  You  have  a 
fellow  god-finder,  I  hear,  in  one  Sandro, 
a  painter  of  a  good  conceit. 

Luca.  'T  is  a  dreamer,  sir,  believe  me,  a 
dreamer  of  virgin  nights,  who  knows  not 
the  oracle  of  a  tense  muscle  nor  the  right 
equivalent  of  a  hairy  chest.  His  gods 
are  of  the  cloister,  and  his  goddesses 
have  the  vapours  of  a  long-legged  girl 
belated  in  the  nursery :  they  are  all  for 
your  tremors  and  swoonings,  your  linger- 
ing fingering  embracements  of  bosom 
friends.  Aphroditissa  !  Bones  of  me, 
shall  Aphrodite  languish  in  a  skimpy 
skirt !  Yet,  if  you  '11  believe  me,  I  can 
tell  you  this  for  sure.  Giuliano  Medici 
met  with  me  yesterday  a-mid-bridge,  and 


Of  Sheep-Shear ers  49 

"  Know  you  ought  against  our  Sandro  ?  " 
says  he.  I  tell  him  what  I  tell  you  now, 
he  's  a  great  painter  of  conceits,  one  that 
will  read  you  a  whole  pandect  of  philos- 
ophy into  a  Pan  and  Syrinx.  The  last 
thing  that  was  there,  I  might  think  — 

Agn.  Nay,  friend  Luca,  you  are  out  there. 
For  what  saith  Metrodorus  Olympiades 
in  his  Syntagma,  the  thirty-fifth  book  ?  I 
hold  you  convicted  of  sin. 

Luca.  Alas,  that  the  chaff  of  the  schools 
should  dusty  the  lips  kissed  by  Apollo 
and  the  Nine!  Your  lore  shall  choke 
your  lyre.  Well,  well !  Where  was  I  ? 
Oh,  Sandro  !  "  T  is  the  man  for  me  !  " 
he  cries,  kindling.  "  He  shall  frame  me 
a  Venus  that  shall  speak.  For  look  you, 
Luca,"  ran  he  on,  being  as  it  were  easy 
in  my  company,  "  I  do  intend  it  a  tribute 
to  a  noble  lady  from  the  Sea,  and  would 
have  it  speak  the  mind  of  Florence  to 
her."  "Sir,"  say  I  — 

Smer.  Now,  my  lord,  now  ! 

Luca.  But  may  I  never  speak  !  "  Sir,"  I  say, 
"  you  will  perchance  honour  your  lady 
friend  where  you  may  cheapen  my  art. 


50  Of  Sheep-Shear ers 

For  believe  me,  sir  "  —  and  I  spoke  him 
stout  and  plain  !  —  "  Your  piece  that  is 
contrived  for  pander  had  been  better 
scratched  on  a  posy-ring  or  hid  in  a 
nosegay ! " 

Ber.  You  cut  him  deep,  sir. 

Luca.  Did  I  not  so  ?  Oh,  I  go  far,  I  go  far  ! 
Yet  is  that  Sandro  a  draftsman  of  great 
parts  and  most  exuberant  spirit.  If  he 
would  dream  less  and  live  more,  he  would 
be  king  of  a  brush  that  would  serve  him, 
when  he  was  minded,  to  flights  in  the  air. 
As  it  is,  he  finds  mind  the  choicer  part  of 
his  matter,  and  will  feed  eagerly  thereon. 
But  't  is  a  food  will  give  him  the  cholick 
and  his  pieces  the  blotch.  Do  I  speak 
plain  enough  ? 

Ber.  Truly,  sir,  you  have  spoken  like  an  old 
acquaintance.  To  meet  again,  sir,  as  I 
must  hope. 

Smer.  Fare  you  heartily  well,  Master  Luca. 
We  must  leave  you  to  ponder  muscles 
and  the  significance  of  brawn  i'  the 
back. 

[They  pass. 

Luca.  Lovely  lady,  I  will  ponder  honesty  and 


Of  Sheep-Shearers  51 

the  right  intention  of  a  speaking  eye.  A 
Circe  prowls  the  strand !  Proper  for  it. 

Agn.  And  the  straight  young  Genoese  ? 

Luca.  Lo  you  !  Odysseus  or  a  pig  ?  Come, 
my  Agnolo ;  no  stuff  for  our  anvil. 

Exeunt 


IV 
A  SACRIFICE  AT  PRATO 

(FROM  A  RECOVERED    NARRATIVE) 

HE  rim  of  the  sun  was  burning  the 
»  hill  tops,  and  already  the  vanguard 
[  of  his  strength  stemming  the  morn- 
ing mists,  when  I  and  my  companion  first  trod 
the  dust  of  a  small  town  which  stood  in  our 
path.  It  still  lay  very  hard  and  white,  how- 
ever, and  sharply  edged  to  its  girdle  of  olives 
and  mulberry  trees  drenched  in  dews,  a  com- 
pactly folded  town  well  fortified  by  strong 
walls  and  many  towers,  with  the  mist  upon  it 
and  softly  over  it  like  a  veil.  For  it  lay  well 
under  the  shade  of  the  hills  awaiting  the  sun's 
coming.  In  the  streets,  though  they  were  by 
no  means  asleep,  but,  contrariwise,  busy  with 
the  traffic  of  men  and  pack-mules,  there  was 
a  shrewd  bite  as  of  night  air ;  looking  up  we 
could  perceive  how  faint  the  blue  of  the  sky 
was,  and  the  cloud-flaw  how  rosy  yet  with  the 


A  Sacrifice  at  Prato  53 

flush  of  Aurora's  beauty-sleep.  Therefore  we 
were  glad  to  get  into  the  market-place,  rilled 
with  people  and  set  round  with  goodly  brick 
buildings,  and  to  feel  the  light  and  warmth 
steal  about  our  limbs. 

"  It  would  seem  fitting,"  said  I,  "  seeing  that 
day  is  at  hand  and  already  we  enjoy  the  first- 
fruits  of  his  largess,  that  we  should  seek  some 
neighbouring  shrine  where  we  might  praise  the 
gods.  For  never  yet  was  land  that  had  not, 
as  its  fairest  work,  gods  :  and  in  a  land  so  fair 
as  this  there  must  needs  be  gods  yet  fairer, 
and  shrines  to  case  them  in."  This  I  said, 
having  observed  pious  offerings  laid  upon  the 
shrines  of  divers  gods  by  the  road.  At  the 
which,  looking  curiously,  it  seemed  to  me  that 
the  inhabitants  of  this  country  were  favoured 
above  the  common  with  devout  thoughts  and 
the  objects  of  them  —  gods  and  goddesses. 
You  might  not  pass  a  farm  without  its  tutelary 
altar  to  the  genius  of  the  place,  some  holy 
shade,  or  —  as  she  was  figured  as  a  matron  — 
some  great  land-goddess,  perhaps  Cybele,  or 
the  Bona  Dea  ;  and  pleasant  it  was  to  me  to 
see  that  the  tufts  of  common  flowers  set  before 
her  were  for  the  most  part  smiling  and  fresh 


54  A  Sacrifice  at  Prato 

with  the  dew  that  assured  an  early  gathering. 
In  the  streets  of  the  city,  moreover,  I  had  seen 
many  more  such,  slight  affairs  (it  is  true)  of 
painted  earthenware,  some  gaudily  adorned 
with  green  and  yellow  colour  and  of  workman- 
ship as  raw,  some  painted  flat  on  the  wall  of 
a  recess  (in  which  was  more  skill,  though  the 
device  was  often  gross  enough  —  to  dwell  upon 
death  and  despair),  and  some  again  of  choice 
beauty  both  of  form  and  colour  and  a  most 
rare  blitheness,  as  it  might  be  the  spirit  of  the 
contrivers  breaking  through  the  hard  stone. 
And  all  of  these  I  knew  to  be  gods,  but  the 
devices  upon  them  were  hard  to  be  read,  or 
approved.  There  was  a  naked  youth  pierced 
with  arrows,  wherein  the  texture  of  smooth 
flesh  accorded  not  well  with  the  bitterness  of 
his  hurt ;  a  young  man  also,  bearded,  of  spare 
and  mournful  habit  and  girt  with  a  rope  round 
his  middle ;  in  his  hands  were  wounds,  as 
again  of  arrows,  and  there  was  a  rent  in  his 
garment  where  a  javelin  had  torn  a  way  into 
his  side.  Such  suffering  of  wounds  and 
broken  flesh  stared  sharply  up  against  the 
young  flowers  and  grasses  which  spoke  of 
healthy  wind  and  rain  and  a  sun-kissed  earth. 


A  Sacrifice  at  Prato  55 

Goddesses  also  I  saw  —  a  virgin  of  comely 
red  and  white  visage ;  yellow-haired  she  was, 
crowned  like  a  king's  daughter ;  at  her  side  a 
wheel,  cruelly  spiked  on  the  outer  edge  and 
not  easily  to  be  related  to  so  heartsome  a 
maid.  But  before  them  all  (with  one  grim 
exception,  to  be  sure)  I  saw  the  Earth-Mother 
who  had  been  upon  the  farm  and  homestead- 
walls,  of  the  same  high  perfection  of  form,  and 
in  raiment  stately  and  adorned,  yet  (it  would 
seem)  something  sorrowful  as  she  might  mourn 
the  loss  of  lover  or  young  child.  Now  the 
darkest  sight  I  saw  was  that  exception  before 
rehearsed  ;  and  it  was  this.  A  black  cross 
stood  in  the  most  joyful  places  of  the  city,  and 
one  suffered  upon  it  to  very  death.  Whereat 
I  marvelled  greatly,  saying,  "  Who  is  the  man 
thus  tormented  whom  the  people  worship  as 
a  god  ?  "  And  my  companion  answered, 

u  A  great  god  he  is,  if  the  country  report 
lie  not,  and  has  many  names  which  amount  to 
this,  that  he  has  freed  this  nation  from  bond- 
age and  died  that  he  may  live  again,  and  they 
too.  And  of  the  truth  of  what  they  say  I  can- 
not speak ;  but  I  think  he  is  Bacchus  the 
Redeemer,  who,  as  you,  Balbus,  know,  was  no 


56  A  Sacrifice  at  Prato 

wanton  reveller  in  lasciviousness,  but  a  very 
god  of  great  benevolence  and  of  wisdom  truly 
dark  and  awful.  Who  also  took  our  mortal 
nature  upon  him  and  suffered  in  the  shades  : 
rising  whence  (for  he  was  god  and  man)  like 
the  dawn  from  the  night's  bosom,  or  the  flood- 
ing of  spring  weather  from  the  iron  gates  of 
winter,  he  sped  over  land  and  sea,  touching 
earth  and  the  dwellers  upon  it.  And  to  those 
he  touched  tongues  were  given  and  sooth- 
saying, and  to  many  the  transports  of  inspira- 
tion and  divine  madness,  as  of  poets  and 
rhapsodists.  And  tragedy  and  choral  odes 
are  his,  and  the  furious  splendour  of  dances. 
But  of  the  worship  of  Dionysus  you  know 
something,  having  been  at  Eleusis  and  beheld 
the  holy  mysteries. 

"  Now  the  god  of  this  people  has  the  same 
gift  of  tongues  and  madness  of  possession. 
To  him  are  also  sacred  priests  of  the  oracle, 
and  high  tragedies,  and  the  wailing  of  music, 
and  streaming  processions  of  virgins  and 
young  boys.  He  too  agonised  and  arose 
stronger  and  more  shining  than  before,  dying, 
indeed,  and  rising  at  the  very  vernal  equinox 
we  have  mentioned.  He  too  is  worshipped  in 


A  Sacrifice  at  Pralo  57 

certain  Mysteries  whereat  the  confession  of 
iniquity  and  the  cleansing  of  hearts  come 
first :  and  the  sacrifice  is  just  that  wheaten 
cake  and  fruit  of  the  vine  whereof,  at  Eleusis, 
you  have  praised  to  me  the  simplicity  and 
ethic  beauty.  And  he  can  inspire  his  devotees 
with  frenzy.  For  I  have  heard  that  certain 
men  of  the  country,  on  a  day,  and  urged  by 
his  daemon,  run  naked  from  place  to  place  in 
honour  of  him,  lashing  their  bare  backs  with 
ox-goads ;  and  will  fast  by  the  week  together, 
they  and  the  women  alike ;  and  that  pious 
virgins,  under  stress  of  these  things,  swoon 
and  are  floated  betwixt  earth  and  heaven,  and 
afterwards  relate  their  blissful  encounters  and 
prophesy  strange  matters ;  receiving  also  dol- 
orous wounds  (which  nevertheless  are  very 
sweet  to  them)  like  to  the  wounds  which  he 
himself  received  unto  death ;  and  all  these 
things  they  endure  because  they  are  mysti- 
cally fraught  with  the  wisdom  and  efficacy  of 
the  god.  Nay,  I  have  been  told  that  in  the 
parts  over  sea,  towards  the  North  and  West, 
he  is  worshipped,  just  as  at  Eleusis,  with 
pipes  and  timbrels  and  brazen  cymbals  and 
all  excess  of  music ;  and  there  they  dance  in 


58  A  Sacrifice  at  Prato 

his  service  and  suffer  the  ecstasies  of  the 
Maenads  and  Corybants  in  the  Dionysiac 
revel.  But  this  I  find  quaint  to  be  believed." 
Now  when  I  had  heard  so  much,  I  was  the 
more  desirous  to  find  some  temple  where  I 
could  observe  the  cult  of  this  wounded  god, 
and  so  sought  counsel  of  my  friend  versed  in 
the  people's  learning.  To  my  questioning  he 
replied  that  it  would  be  easy.  We  were  (said 
he)  in  the  market-place  among  the  buyers  and 
chafferers  of  fruit,  vegetables,  earthenware, 
milk,  eggs,  and  such  country  produce;  which 
honest  folk,  it  being  the  hour  of  the  morning 
sacrifice  and  the  temple  facing  us,  would  soon 
abandon  their  brisk  toil  for  religion's  sake ; 
whereupon  we  too  would  go.  So  I  looked 
across  the  square  and  saw  a  very  fair  building, 
lofty  and  many  windowed,  all  of  clean  white 
marble,  banded  over  with  bars  of  a  smooth 
black  stone,  curiously  carved,  moreover,  in 
sculptured  work  of  gods  and  men  and  of  flow- 
ers and  fruits  —  all  cut  in  the  pure  marble.  At 
one  side  was  a  noble  rostrum,  of  the  like  fine 
stone,  whereon  young  boys  and  girls,  as  it 
were  fauns  and  dryads  and  other  woodland 
creatures,  capered  as  they  list :  and  above 


A  Sacrifice  at  Prato  59 

the  midmost  door  a  semi-circle  of  pale  blue 
enamel,  whereon  was  the  image  of  the  Great 
Goddess  in  gleaming  white.  She  was  of  smil- 
ing debonnair  countenance  and  in  the  full 
pride  of  her  blossom-time  —  being  as  a  young 
woman  whose  girdle  is  new  loosed  to  the  will 
of  her  lord  —  and  in  her  arms  was  a  naked 
child,  finely  wrought  to  the  size  of  life.  On 
either  side  of  her  a  beautiful  youth  (in  whom 
I  must  needs  admire  the  smoothness  of  their 
chins  and  the  bravery  of  their  vesture  shining 
in  the  clear  light),  did  reverence  to  the  God- 
dess and  the  child  :  and  there  were  beings, 
winged  like  birds,  with  the  faces  of  strong 
boys,  but  no  bodies  at  all  that  I  could  see, 
who  flew  above  them  all.  This  was  brave 
work,  very  wonderful  to  me  in  a  people  who, 
thus  excellently  inspired  and  having  such 
comely  smiling  divinities  and  so  clear  a  vision 
of  them  before  their  eyes,  could  yet  be  curious 
after  suffering  heroes  and  stabbed  virgins  and 
gods  with  mangled  limbs.  But  we  went  into 
the  temple  with  the  good  people  of  the  coun- 
try-side to  the  sound  of  bells  from  a  high 
tower  hard  by.  And  I  was  something  sur- 
prised that  they  brought  no  beasts  with  them 


60  A  Sacrifice  at  Prato 

for  the  sacrifice,  nor  any  of  the  fruits  which 
were  so  abundant  in  the  land ;  but  my  com- 
panion reminded  me  again  that  the  sacrifice 
was  ready  prepared  within,  and  was,  as  it 
were,  emblematical  of  all  fruits  and  every  sort 
of  meat,  being  that  wine  and  bread  into  which 
you  may  comprehend  all  bodily  and  (by  a 
figure)  ghostly  sustenance.  By  this  we  were 
within  the  temple,  which  I  now  perceived  was 
a  pantheon,  having  altars  to  all  the  gods, 
some  only  of  whose  shrines  I  had  remarked 
on  the  way  thither.  Dark  and  lofty  it  was, 
with  piered  arches  that  soared  into  the  mist, 
and  jewelled  windows  painfully  worked  in 
histories  and  fables  of  old  time  :  —  all  as  far 
apart  as  conceivably  might  be  from  the  holy 
places  of  my  own  country ;  for  whereas,  with 
us,  the  level  gaze  of  the  sun  is  never  absent, 
and  through  the  colonnades  you  would  see 
stretches  of  the  far  blue  country,  or,  per- 
chance, the  shimmer  of  the  restless  sea,  here 
no  light  of  day  could  penetrate,  and  all  the 
senses  might  apprehend  must  be  of  solemn 
darkness,  longing  thoughts  to  cleave  it,  and, 
afar  off  and  dim,  some  flutter  of  even  light  as 
of  blest  abodes.  A  strange  people  !  to  despise 


A  Sacrifice  at  Prato  61 

the  sure  and  fair,  for  the  taunting  shadows  of 
desire.  But,  growing  more  familiar  in  the 
middle  of  newness  and  the  awe  that  comes  of 
it,  I  was  again  amazed  at  the  number  of  the 
gods,  their  nature  and  sort.  I  saw  again  the 
arrow-stricken  youth,  whom  we  call  Asclepius 
(but  never  knew  thus  tormented  —  as  with  his 
father's  arrows!)  and  again  the  Maid  of  the 
Wheel,  Fortune  as  I  suppose:  but  with  us 
the  wheel  is  not  so  manifestly  bitter.  Then 
also  the  wounded  hero,  cowled  and  corded, 
ragged  exceedingly,  the  like  of  whom  we  have 
not,  unless  it  be  some  stripling  loved  by  an 
immortal  and  wounded  to  death  by  grudging 
Fate,  as  Atys  or  Adonis.  And  if,  indeed,  this 
were  one  of  them,  the  image-maker  did  surely 
err  in  making  him  of  so  vile  a  presence  —  a 
thing  against  all  likelihood  that  the  gods, 
being  themselves  of  super-excellent  shapeli- 
ness, should  stoop  to  anything  of  less  favour. 
Yet  he  was  of  singular  sweetness  in  his  pains, 
and  high  fortitude  :  and  he  was  much  loved  of 
the  people,  as  I  afterwards  learned.  And  one 
was  a  young  knight,  winged  and  with  a  sword 
in  his  hand ;  at  his  feet  a  grievous  worm  of 
many  folds.  This  I  must  take  for  Perseus 


62  A  Sacrifice  at  Prato 

but  that  his  radiancy  did  rather  point  him  for 
Phoebus,  the  lord  of  days .  and  the  red  sun. 
But  in  the  centre  of  the  whole  temple  was  an 
altar,  high  and  broad,  fenced  about  with  steps 
and  a  rail,  which  I  took  to  be  made  unto  the 
god  of  gods  or  perhaps  the  king  of  that  coun- 
try, until  I  saw  the  black  cross  and  the  Ago- 
nist hanging  from  it  as  one  dead.  Then  I 
knew  that  the  chief  god  of  this  people  was 
Dionysus  the  Redeemer,  if  it  were  really  he. 
But  I  had  reason  to  alter  my  opinion  on  that 
matter  as  you  shall  hear. 

By  this  the  temple  was  filled  with  the  country 
folk  who  flocked  in  with  the  very  reek  of  their 
toil  upon  them  and  hardly  so  much  as  their 
implements  and  marketable  wares  left  behind. 
They  were  of  all  ages  and  conditions,  both 
youths  and  maids,  arrowy,  tall  and  open-eyed ; 
and  aged  ones  there  were,  bowed  by  labour 
and  seamed  with  the  stress  of  weather  or  the 
assaults  of  unstaying  Fate  :  whereof,  for  the 
most  part,  the  women  sat  down  against  the 
wall  and  plied  dextrously  their  fans ;  but  the 
men  stood  leaning  against  the  pillars  which 
held  the  timbers  of  the  roof.  And  they  con- 
versed easily  together,  and  some  were  merry, 


A  Sacrifice  at  Prato  63 

and  others,  as  I  could  perceive,  beset  with 
affairs  of  government  or  business  —  for  they 
talked  more  vehemently  of  these  matters  than 
of  others,  as  men  will,  even  beneath  the  very 
eyelids  of  the  god.  And  so  I  could  under- 
stand that  this  sacrifice  was  not  the  yearly 
celebrating  of  high  mysteries,  but  the  common 
piety  of  every  day  with  which  it  is  rather 
seemly  than  essential  we  should  begin  our 
labouring.  There  were,  indeed,  signs  in  the 
apparelling  of  the  temple  that  more  solemn 
festivals  were  sometimes  held,  as  the  delivery 
of  oracles,  the  calculation  of  auspices  and 
such  like :  that,  at  least,  I  took  to  be  the 
intention  of  small  recesses  along  the  walls, 
that,  through  a  grating  of  fine  brass,  a  priest 
of  the  sanctuary  uttered  the  wisdom  of  the  god 
in  sentences  which  the  meaner  sort  should  fit 
with  what  ease  they  might  to  their  circum- 
stances. For,  I  suppose,  it  is  still  found  good 
that  the  dark  saying  of  the  Oracle  should  be 
illumined  by  the  subtlety  of  the  initiate  and 
not  by  the  necessities  of  the  simple.  And 
while  I  was  thus  musing  I  found  the  minis- 
trants  in  shining  white  about  the  great  altar, 
busied  with  the  preparation  for  the  rite,  lighting 


64  A  Sacrifice  at  Prato 

the  torches  (very  inconsiderable  for  so  large  a 
building,  but,  mayhap,  proportionate  to  the 
condition  of  the  people) :  and  they  placed  a 
great  book  upon  the  altar,  and  bowed  them- 
selves ere  they  left.  And  soon  afterwards,  to 
the  ringing  of  a  bell,  came  the  priest's  boy 
carrying  the  offering  of  the  altar,  and  the 
priest  himself  in  stiff  garments  of  white  and 
yellow. 

Now,  for  the  sacrifice,  I  could  not  well 
understand  it,  save  that  it  was  very  shortly 
done  and  with  a  light  heart  accepted  by  the 
people,  who  (I  thought)  held  it  as  of  the  num- 
ber of  those  services  whose  bare  performance 
is  efficacious  and  wholesome  —  on  account, 
partly  of  reverent  antiquity  and  long  usage, 
and  partly  as  having  some  hidden  virtue  best 
known  to  the  god  in  whose  honour  it  is  done. 
For  in  my  own  country,  I  know  well,  there 
were  many  such  rites,  whose  commission  edi- 
fied the  people  more  than  their  omission 
would  have  dishonoured  the  god  :  wise  men, 
therefore,  (as  priests  and  philosophers)  who 
would  live  in  peace,  bow  their  bodies  by  rule, 
knowing  surely  that  their  souls  may  be  bolt 
upright  notwithstanding.  So  here  were  many 


A  Sacrifice  at  Prato  65 

solemn  acts  which,  doubtless,  once  had  some 
now  unfathomable  design  and  purport,  dili- 
gently rehearsed,  while  the  worshippers  gazed 
about  with  dull  unconcern,  or,  being  young, 
cast  eyes  of  longing  upon  the  country  wenches 
set  laughing  and  rosy  by  the  wall,  or,  old, 
nursed  their  infirmities.  And,  on  a  sudden,  a 
bell  rang ;  and  again  rang ;  and  the  packed 
body  of  men  and  women  fell  upon  their  faces, 
and  so  remained  in  a  horrific  silence  for  a 
space  where  a  man  might  count  a  score. 
Thereafter  another  bell,  as  of  release.  So  the 
assembly  rose  to  their  feet  and,  as  I  saw, 
swept  from  their  foreheads  and  breasts  the 
dust  of  the  temple  floor.  But  as  soon  as  it 
was  over,  a  very  old  priest  came  through  the 
press  and  offered  the  same  sacrifice  in  a  little 
guarded  shrine  at  the  lower  end,  amid  many 
lamps  and  wax  torches  and  glittering  orna- 
ments. Here  was  more  devotion  among  the 
people,  indeed  a  great  struggling  and  elbow- 
ing just  so  as  to  touch  the  altar,  or  the  steps 
of  it,  or  the  priest's  hem,  or  even  the  rails 
which  fenced  the  shrine.  And  with  some 
show  of  good  reason  was  this  hubbub,  as  I 
learned.  For  here  was  indeed  treasured  the 


66  A  Sacrifice  at  Prato 

Girdle  of  Venus  (this  being  her  very  sanctu- 
ary) and  as  much  desired  as  ever  it  was  by 
women  great  with  child  or  wanting  to  con- 
ceive. And  I  looked  very  curiously  upon  it, 
but  the  Girdle  I  could  never  see ;  only  there 
was  a  painted  image  over  the  altar  of  the 
great  queen-mother,  Venus  Genetrix  herself, 
depicted  as  a  broad-browed,  placid  matron 
giving  of  the  fruits  of  her  bounteous  breasts 
to  a  male  child.  Then  I  knew  that  this  was 
that  same  Goddess  who  stood  over  the  outer 
door  of  the  place,  and  was  well  pleased  to 
find  that  the  people,  howsoever  ignorantly, 
adored  the  power  that  enwombs  the  world  — 
Venus,  the  life-bringer  and  quickener  of  things 
that  breathe,  —  and  could,  in  this  matter, 
touch  hearts  with  the  wise.  So  with  this 
thought,  that  truly  God  was  one  and  men 
divers,  I  came  out  of  the  temple  well  pleased, 
into  the  level  light  of  the  day's  beam. 

In  the  tavern  doorway,  under  a  bush  of 
green  ilex,  we  sat  down  in  company  to  eat 
bread  and  peaches  sopped  in  the  wine  of  the 
country,  and  talked  very  briskly  of  all  the 
things  we  had  seen  and  heard.  And  soon 
into  the  current  of  our  discourse  was  drawn  a 


A  Sacrifice  at  Prato  67 

dark-faced  youth,  who  had  been  observing  us 
earnestly  for  some  time  from  under  his  hang- 
ing brows,  and  who,  growing  mighty  curious 
(as  I  find  the  way  of  them  is),  must  know 
who  and  whence  we  were  and  of  what  belief 
and  condition  in  the  world.  So  when  I  had 
satisfied  him,  "  Turn  for  turn,"  said  I,  "my 
honest  friend :  being  strangers,  as  you  have 
learned,  we  have  seen  many  things  which 
touch  us  nearly,  and  some  which  are  hard  of 
reading.  But  this  very  reading  is  to  us  of  high 
concernment,  for  these  matters  relate  to  relig- 
ion, and  religion,  of  what  sort  soever  it  may 
be,  no  man  can  venture  to  despise.  For  cer- 
tain I  am,  that,  as  a  man  hath  never  seen  the 
gods,  so  he  may  never  be  sure  that  he  hath 
ever  conceived  them,  even  darkly,  as  in  a 
mirror.  For  we  are  dwellers  in  a  cave,  my 
friend,  with  our  backs  to  the  light,  and  may 
not  tell  of  a  truth  whether  the  shadows  that 
flit  and  fade  be  indeed  gods  or  no.  Tell  me, 
therefore,  (for  I  am  puzzled  by  it)  is  the  god- 
dess whose  presentment  I  yet  see  over  your 
temple-porch,  that  Mother  of  gods  and  men, 
yea,  even  Mother  of  life  itself,  to  whom  we 
also  bend  the  neck  ?  " 


68  A  Sacrifice  at  Prato 

"  She  is,  sir,  as  we  believe,  Mother  of  God ; 
and  therefore,  God  being  author  of  life,  Mother 
of  life  and  all  things  living." 

"  It  is  as  I  had  believed,"  said  I,  "  and  you, 
young  sir,  and  I,  may  bow  together  in  that 
temple  of  hers  without  offence.  For  the  tem- 
ple is  to  her  honour  as  I  conceive  ? " 

"Why,  yes,"  he  answered,  "it  is  raised 
to  her  most  holy  name  and  to  that  of  our 
Lord." 

"And  your  Lord,  who  is  this  ?  and  which 
altar  is  his  ?  For  there  were  many." 

"  The  great  altar  is  his,  and  indeed  he  is  to 
be  worshipped  in  all/'  said  the  young  man. 

"  He  is  then  the  tortured  god,  whose  sem- 
blance hangs  upon  the  black  cross  ?  " 

"  He  is." 

Then  I  begged  him  to  tell  me  why  these 
mournful  images  were  scattered  over  his 
goodly  earth,  these  maimed  gods,  this  blood 
and  weeping ;  but  I  may  not  set  down  all  that 
he  told  me  seeing  that  much  of  it  was  dark, 
and  much,  as  I  thought,  not  pertinent  to  the 
issue.  Much  again  was  said  with  his  hands, 
which  I  cannot  interpret  here.  Suffice  it  that 
I  learned  this  concerning  the  Agonist,  that  he 


A  Sacrifice  at  Prato  69 

was  the  son  of  the  goddess  and  greater  than 
she,  though  in  a  sense  less.  Mortal  he  was, 
and  immortal,  abject  to  look  upon,  being 
indeed  accounted  a  malefactor  and  crucified 
like  a  thief ;  and  yet  a  king  of  men,  speaking 
wisdom  whereof  the  like  hath  hardly  been 
heard.  For  of  two  things  he  taught  there 
would  seem  to  be  no  bottom  to  them,  so  pro- 
found and  unsearchable  they  are.  And  one 
of  them  was  this,  —  "  The  kingdom  is  within 
you  "  (or  some  such  words)  ;  and  the  other 
was,  "Who  will  lose  his  life  shall  save  it." 
Whereof,  methinks,  the  first  comprehends  all 
the  teaching  of  the  Academy  and  the  second 
that  of  the  Porch.  So  this  man  must  needs 
have  been  a  god,  and  whether  the  son  or  no 
of  the  Soul  of  the  World,  greater  than  she. 
For  what  she  did,  as  it  were  by  necessity  and 
her  blind  inhering  power,  he  knew.  Therefore 
he  must  have  been  Wisdom  itself.  And  thus 
I  knew  that  he  could  not  be  Dionysus  the 
Saviour,  though  he  might  have  many  of  his 
attributes ;  nor  simply  that  son  of  Venus 
whom  Ausonius  alone  of  our  poets  saw  fast- 
ened to  a  cross.  So  at  last,  "  I  will  tell  you," 
said  I,  "  who  this  god  really  is,  as  it  seems  to 


70  A  Sacrifice  at  Prato 

me.  Being  of  vile  estate  and  yet  greatest  of 
all ;  being  mortal  and  yet  immortal,  god  and 
man ;  being  at  once  most  wise  and  most  sim- 
ple, and  (as  such  his  condition  imports)  inter- 
mediate between  Earth  and  Heaven,  he  must 
needs  be  the  Divine  Eros,  concerning  whom 
Plato's  words  are  yet  with  us.  So  I  can 
understand  why  he  is  so  wise,  why  he  suffers 
always,  and  yet  cannot  be  driven  by  torment 
nor  persuaded  by  sophisms  to  cease  loving. 
For  the  necessity  of  love  is  to  crave  ever ;  and 
he  is  Love  himself.  Wherefore  I  am  very 
sure  he  can  lead  men,  if  they  will,  from  the 
fair  things  of  the  world  to  those  infinitely 
fairer  things  in  themselves  whereby  what  we 
now  have  are  so  very  fair  to  see.  And  he 
may  well  be  son  of  this  goddess  and  nour- 
ished by  her  milk ;  for  it  behoves  us  that  a 
god  should  stand  between  Earth  and  Heaven 
and  be  compact  of  the  elements  of  either,  so 
that  he  should  condescend  the  wisdom  of  his 
head  to  instruct  the  clemency  of  his  heart. 
And  we  know,  you  and  I,  that  the  gods  are 
but  attributes  of  God,  whose  intellect  (as  I 
say)  may  well  be  in  Heaven,  but  his  heart  is 
in  the  Earth,  and  is  the  core  of  it.  For  so  we 


A  Sacrifice  at  Prato  71 

say  of  the  poet  that  his  heart  is  ever  in  his 
fair  work." 

Thus  we  took  our  wine  and  were  well  con- 
tent to  sit  in  the  sunshine. 


OF  POETS  AND  NEEDLEWORK 

HE  man  of  our  time  to  class  poetry 
,  as  a  thing  very  pleasant  and  useful 
;  shall  hardly  be  found.  At  most  the 
saying  will  suffer  reprint  as  a  'quaintness,  a 
freak,  or  a  paradox ;  and  so  it  has  proved. 
From  Prato,  dusty  little  city  of  mid-Tuscany, 
and  with  the  impress  of  its  Reale  Orfanotrofio 
(nourisher,  it  would  thus  appear,  of  more 
Humanities  than  one)  comes  an  "  Opera 
Nova,  nella  quale  si  contengono  bellissime  his- 
toric, contrasti,  lamenti  et  frottole,  con  alcune 
canzonia  ballo,  strambotti,geloght,farse,  capitoli 
e  bazellette  di  piu  eccellenti  autori.  Aggiuntevi 
assai  tramutationi,  villanelle  alia  napolitana, 
sonetti  alia  bergamasca  et  mariazi  alia  povana, 
indovinelli,  ritoboli  e  passerotti;"  cos  a,  this 
legend  goes  on  to  say,  molto  piacevole  et  utile. 
This  is,  no  doubt,  rococo,  and  at  best  a  pitiful, 
catchfarthing  bit  of  ancientry :  yet  it  looks 


Of  Poets  and  Needle-work         73 

back  to  a  time  when  it  was  indeed  the  fact 
that  no  choice  work  could  be  but  useful,  and 
when  eyes  and  ears,  as  conduits  to  the  soul, 
had  that  full  of  consideration  we  reserve  for 
mouth  and  nose,  purveyors  to  the  belly. 

Vasari,  Giorgio,  he  too,  bourgeois  though  he 
were,  and  in  so  far  the  best  of  testimony,  knew 
it  when  he  found  Luca's  blue  and  white  to  be 
"  molto  utile  per  la  state."  We  should  say 
that  of  an  umbrella  or  of  white  flannels  ;  why 
of  milky  earthenware  or  an  adroit  strambotto  ? 
That  marks  the  cleft,  the  incurable  gulf  of 
difference  between  a  people  like  the  Tuscans 
with  art  in  their  marrow,  and  our  present 
selves  with  our  touching  reliance  upon  a  most 
unseemly  hunger  after  facts.  I  suppose  I 
should  be  stretching  a  point  if  I  said  that 
Samson  Agonistes  was  cosa  molto  piacevole  ed 
utile.  And  yet  I  name  there  a  great  poem 
and  a  weighty,  whence  the  general  public 
suck,  or  claim  to  suck,  no  small  advantage. 
Is  it  more  useful  to  them  than  Bradshaw  ?  I 
doubt.  But  here,  in  this  Opera  Nova  so 
furthered,  are  sixty-three  little  snatches  of 
Luigi  Pulci's,  eight  lines  to  the  stave,  about 
the  idlest  of  make-believe  love  affairs,  full  of 


74          Of  Poets  and  Needlework 

such  Petrarchisms  as  "  GP  occhi  tuoi  belli  son 
li  crudel  dardi,"  or 

"  Tu  m'ai  trafitto  il  cor !  donde  io  moro, 
Se  tu,  iddea,  non  mi  dai  aiutoro."  — 

the  merest  commonplaces  of  gallantry :  called 
on  what  account  by  their  contrivers  motto 
tittle  ? 

I  have  urged  somewhere  else  that  the  Tus- 
cans were  inveterate  weavers  of  fancy,  choosing 
what  came  easiest  to  hand  to  weave  withal.  I 
dared  to  see  such  airy  spinning  in  that  Spanish 
Chapel  from  which  Mr.  Ruskin  has  nearly 
frightened  the  lovers  of  Art ;  I  said  that  the 
Summa  was  to  the  painters  there  as  good 
vantage  ground  as  a  novel  of  Sacchetti's.  I 
now  say  that  Luigi  Pulci  and  his  kindred  so 
treated  the  love-lore  which  was  solemn  mystery 
to  Guinicelli  and  Lapo  and  Fazio,  or  the  young 
Dante  shuddering  before  his  lord  of  terrible 
aspect.  I  would  add  Petrarch's  name  to  this 
honourable  roll  if  I  believed  it  fitting  such  a 
niche ;  but  I  find  him  the  greatest  equivocator 
of  them  all,  and  owe  him  a  grudge  for  making 
a  fifteenth-century  Dante  impossible.  It  is 


Of  Poets  and  Needlework         75 

true,  had  there  been  such  a  poet  we  should 
never  have  had  our  Milton ;  but  that  may  not 
serve  the  Swan  of  Vaucluse  as  justification  for 
being  miserable  before  a  looking-glass,  that  he 
starved  his  grandsons  to  serve  ours.  Take 
him  then  as  a  poser :  give  him,  for  the  argu- 
ment's sake,  Boccace  to  his  company,  Cino ; 
give  him  our  Pulci,  give  him  Ariosto,  give  him 
Lorenzo,  Politian ;  give  him  Tasso  for  aught 
I  care ;  you  have  no  one  left.  Dante  stands 
alone  upon  the  skyey  peaks  of  his  great  argu- 
ment, steadied  there  and  holding  his  breath, 
as  for  the  hush  that  precedes  weighty  endeav- 
our ;  and  Bojardo  (no  Tuscan  by  birth)  stands 
squarely  to  the  plains,  holding  out  one  hand 
to  Rabelais  over-Alps  and  another  to  Boccace 
grinning  in  his  grave.  The  fellow  is  such  a 
sturdy  pagan  we  must  e'en  forgive  him  some 
of  his  quirks.  Italian  poesy,  poor  lady,  stript 
to  the  smock,  can  still  look  honestly  out  if 
she  have  but  two  such  vestments  whole  and 
unclouted  as  the  Commedia  and  the  Orlando. 
Let  us  look  at  some  of  her  spoiled  bravery. 
Take  up  my  Opera  Nova  and  pick  over  Pulci 
in  his  lightest  mood.  I  am  minded  to  try  my 
hand  for  your  amusement. 


76          Of  Poets  and  Needlework 

"  Let  him  rejoice  who  can  ;  for  me,  I  'd  grieve  ; 
Peace  be  with  all;  for  me  yet  shall  be  war; 
Let  him  that  hugs  delight,  hug  on,  and  leave 
To  me  sweet  pain,  lest  day  my  night  shall  mar ; 
I  am  struck  hard ;  the  world,  you  may  believe, 
Laughs  out;  —  rejoice,  my  world !  I  '11  pet  my  scar. 
Rogue  love  that  puttest  me  to  such  a  pass, 
They  cry  thee  <  It  is  well ! '  I  sing,  '  Alas  ! '  " 

Vers  de  soctite  ?  No  ;  too  rhetorical :  your 
antithesis  gives  headaches  to  fine  ladies. 
Euphuist?  Not  in  the  applied  sense:  read 
Shakespere's  sonnets  in  that  manner;  or,  if 
you  object  that  Shakespere  is  too  high  for 
such  comparisons,  read  Drummond  of  Haw- 
thornden.  Poetry,  which  has  a  soul,  we  can- 
not call  it.  Verse  it  assuredly  is,  and  of  the 
most  excellent.  Just  receive  a  quatrain  of  the 
pure  spring  and  judge  for  yourself : 

"  Chi  gode  goda,  che  pur  io  stento ; 
Chi  e  in  pace  si  sia,  ch'io  son  in  guerra ; 
Chi  ha  diletto  1'habbi,  ch'io  ho  tormento ; 
Chi  vive  lieto,  in  me  dolor  afferra." 

Balance  is  there.  Vocalization,  adjustment 
of  sound,  discriminate  use  of  long  syllables  and 


Of  Poets  and  Needlework         77 

short,  of  subjunctive  and  indicative  moods.  T 
Unpremeditated  art  it  is  not :  indeed  it  is  craft 
rather  than  art ;  for  Art  demands  a  larger 
share  of  soul-expenditure  than  Pulci  could 
afford.  And  of  such  is  the  delicate  ware 
which  Tuscany,  nothing  doubting,  took  for 
lavoro  molto  utile.  For,  believe  it  or  not,  of 
that  kind  were  Delia  Robbia's  enrichments, 
Ghirlandajo's  frescos,  Raphael's  Madonnas, 
and  Alberti's  broad  marble  churches :  of  that 
kind  and  of  no  other ;  on  a  level  with  the 
painted  lady  smiling  out  of  a  painted  window 
at  Airolo,  whose  frozen  lips  assure  the  trav- 
erser  of  the  Saint  Gothard  that  he  has  passed 
the  ridge  and  may  soon  smell  the  olives. 

Wherein,  then,  is  the  use  ?  Why,  it  is  in 
the  art  of  it.  I  will  convict  you  out  of  Al- 
berti's own  mouth,  or  his  biographer's,  for  he 

1  More  than  that :  the  piece  is  an  excellent  example 
of  the  skilful  use  of  redundant  syllables.  It  is  certain 
that  a  study  of  Italian  poetry  would  help  our,  too 
often,  tame  blank  verse  to  be  (however  bad  otherwise) 
at  least  not  dull.  It  might  bring  it  nearer  to  Milton, 
as  Dante  brought  Keats.  Witness  his  revision  of 
Hyperion.  If  the  Tuscans  over-rated  the  craft  in 
Poetry ;  we  assuredly  under- rate  it. 


78          Of  Poets  and  Needlework 

spake  it  truly.  "  For  he  was  wont  to  say," 
thus  runs  the  passage,  "that  whatever  might 
be  accomplished  by  the  wit  of  man  with  a 
certain  choiceness,  that  indeed  was  next  to 
the  divine.''  To  image  the  divine,  you  see, 
you  must  accomplish  somewhat,  scrupulously 
weigh,  select  and  refuse ;  in  short  adapt 
exquisitely  your  means  until  they  are  adequate 
to  your  ends.  And,  keeping  the  eye  steadily 
on  that,  you  might  grow  to  discard  solemn 
ends,  or  momentous,  altogether,  until  poetry 
and  painting  ceased  to  be  arts  at  all,  and 
must  be  classed,  at  best,  with  needlework. 
So  indeed  it  proved  in  the  case  of  poetry. 
After  Politian  (who  really  did  catch  some  echo 
of  other  times,  and  of  manners  more  primal 
than  his  own,  and  did  instil  something  of  it  in 
his  Orfeo)  no  poet  of  Italy  had  anything  seri- 
ous to  say.  I  doubt  it  even  of  Tasso,  though 
Tasso,  I  know,  has  a  vogue.  I  except,  of 
course,  Michael  Angelo,  as  I  have  already 
said ;  and  I  except  Boccace  and  Bojardo. 
Painting  was  drawn  out  of  the  pit  laid  privily 
for  her  by  the  sheer  necessity  of  an  outlet ; 
and  painting,  having  much  to  say,  became  the 
representative  Italian  art.  Poetry,  the  most 


Of  Poets  and  Needlework         79 

ancient  of  them  all,  as  she  is  the  most  majes- 
tic ;  the  art  which  refuses  to  be  taught,  and 
alone  of  her  sisters  must  be  acquired  by  self- 
spenditure  (so  that  before  you  can  learn  to 
string  your  words  in  music  you  must  be  shaken 
with  a  thought  which,  to  your  torturing,  you 
must  spoil) ;  poetry,  at  once  music  and  soothsay, 
knitted  to  us  as  touching  her  common  speech, 
and  to  the  spheres  as  touching  on  the  same 
immortal  harmonies  ;  poetry  such  as  Dante's 
was,  was  gone  from  Tuscany,  and  painting,  to 
her  own  ruining,  reigned  instead,  drawing  in 
sculpture  and  architecture  to  share  her  king- 
dom and  attributes.  Which  indeed  they  did, 
to  their  equal  detriment  and  our  discourage- 
ment that  read. 

When  I  want  to  see  Death  in  small-clothes 
bowing  in  the  drawing-room  I  turn  to  my 
Petrarch  and  open  at  Sonnet  cclxxxii.  where 
it  is  written  how  :  — 

"It  lies  with  Death  to  take  the  beauty  of 
Laura  but  not  the  gracious  memory  of  her  ;  " 

As  thus : 

"  Now  hast  thou  touch'd  thy  stretch  of  power,  O  Death  ; 
Thy  brigandage  hath  beggar'd  Love's  demesne 
And  quench'd  the  lamp  that  lit  it,  and  the  queen 


8o          Of  Poets  and  Needlework 

Of  all  the  flowers  snapped  with  thy  ragged  teeth. 

Hollow  and  meagre  stares  our  life  beneath 

The  querulous  moon,  robb'd  of  its  sovereign  : 

Yet  the  report  of  her,  her  deathless  mien  — 

Not  thine,  O  churl !     Not  thine,  thou  greedy  Death ! 

They  are  with  her  in  Heaven,  the  which  her  grace, 

Light  some  brave  light,  gladdens  exceedingly 

And  shoots  chance  beams  to  this  our  dwelling-place : 

So  art  thou  swallowed  in  her  victory. 

And  me  her  beauty  whelmed  in  very  sooth, 

On  me  that  last-born  angel  shall  have  ruth." 

Look  in  vain  for  the  deep  heart-cry  that 
voiced  Dante's  passion  in  the  tremendous 
statements  of  this  : 

"  Beatrice  is  gone  up  into  high  Heaven, 
The  kingdom  where  the  angels  are  at  peace ; 
And  lives  with  them :  and  to  her  friends  is  dead. 
Not  by  the  frost  of  winter  was  she  driven 
Away,  like  others  ;  nor  by  summer  heats  ; 
But  through  a  perfect  gentleness,  instead. 
For  from  the  lamp  of  her  meek  lowlihead 
Such  an  exceeding  glory  went  up  hence 
That  it  woke  wonder  in  the  Eternal  Sire, 
Until  a  sweet  desire 
Entered  Him  for  that  lovely  excellence, 
So  that  He  bade  her  to  Himself  aspire  ; 
Counting  this  weary  and  most  evil  place 
Unworthy  of  a  thing  so  full  of  grace." 

(D.  G.  ROSSETTI.) 


Of  Poets  and  Needlework         81 

Now  and  again  it  may  happen  that  a  poet, 
ridden  by  the  images  of  his  thought,  can 
"  state  the  facts "  and  leave  the  rhyme  to 
chance.  The  Greeks,  to  whom  facts  were 
rarer  and  of  more  significance,  one  supposes, 
than  they  are  to  us,  did  it  habitually.  That 
is  what  gives  such  irresistible  import  to  Homer 
and  to  Sophocles.  They  knew  that  the  adjec- 
tive is  the  natural  enemy  of  the  verb.  The 
naked  act,  the  bare  thought,  a  sequence  of 
stately-balanced  rhythm  and  that  ensuing 
harmony  of  sentences,  gave  their  poetry  its 
distinction.  They  did  not  wilfully  colour  their 
verse,  if  they  did,  as  I  suppose  we  must  admit, 
their  statues.  "  Now,"  says  Sir  Thomas, 
"  there  is  a  musick  wherever  there  is  a  har- 
mony, order  or  proportion ;  and  thus  far  we 
may  maintain  the  musick  of  the  spheres  ;  for 
those  well-ordered  motions,  and  regular  paces, 
though  they  give  no  sound  unto  the  ear,  yet 
to  the  understanding  they  strike  a  note  most 
full  of  harmony."  After  the  Greeks,  Dante, 
who  may  have  drawn  lo  bello  stile  from  Virgil, 
but  hardly  his  great  notes,  as  of  a  bell,  carried 
on  the  tradition  of  directness  and  naked 
strength.  But  Petrarch  and  after  him  all 


82          Of  Poets  and  Needlework 

Tuscany  dallied  with  light  thinking,  and  beat 
all  the  images  of  Love's  treasury  into  thin 
conventions. 

Pero,  what  gentlemen  they  were,  these 
"  ingegni  fiorentini,"  these  Tuscan  wits  !  What 
innate  breeding  and  reticence !  What  punc- 
tilious loyalty  to  the  little  observances  of 
literature,  of  wall-decoration,  call  it,  in  the 
most  licentiously  minded  of  them !  Lorenzo 
Magnifico  was  a  rake  and  could  write  lewdly 
enough,  as  we  all  know.  Yet,  when  he  chose, 
that  is  when  Art  bade  him,  how  unerringly  he 
chose  the  right  momentum.  His  too  was  "  la 
mente  che  non  erra."  I  found  this  of  his  the 
other  day,  and  must  needs  close  up  my  notes 
with  it.  The  very  notion  of  it  was,  in  his 
time,  a  convention  :  a  series  of  sonnets  bound 
together  by  an  argument :  a  Vita  nuova  with- 
out its  overmastering  occasion.  Simonetta  was 
dead ;  whereupon  "  tutti  i  fiorentini  ingegni, 
come  si  conviene  in  si  pubblica  jattura,  diver- 
samente  ed  avversamente  si  dolsono,  chi  in 
versi,  chi  in  prosa."  The  poor  dead  lady  was, 
in  fact,  a  butt  for  these  sharpshooters.  But 
hear  Lorenzo. 

"  Died,  as  we  have  declared,  in  our  city  a 


Of  Poets  and  Needlework         83 

certain  lady,  whereby  all  people  alike  in  Flor- 
ence were  moved  to  compassion.  And  this  is 
no  marvel,  seeing  that  with  all  earthly  beauty 
and  courtesy  she  was  adorned  as,  before  her 
day,  no  other  under  heaven  could  have  been. 
Among  her  other  excellent  parts,  she  had  a 
carriage  so  sweet  and  winsome  that  whosoever 
should  have  any  commerce  or  friendly  dealing 
with  her,  straightway  fell  to  believe  himself 
enamoured  of  her.  Ladies  also,  and  all  youth 
of  her  degree,  not  only  suffered  no  harbourage 
to  unkindly  thought  upon  this  her  eminence 
over  all  the  rest,  nor  grudged  it  her  at  all, 
but  stoutly  upheld  and  took  pleasure  in  her 
loveliness  and  gracious  bearing ;  and  this  so 
honestly  that  you  would  have  found  it  hard  to 
be  believed  so  many  men  without  jealousy 
could  have  loved  her,  or  so  many  ladies  with- 
out envy  give  her  place.  So,  the  more  her 
life  by  its  comely  ordering  had  endeared  her  to 
mankind,  pity  also  for  her  death,  for  the  flower 
of  her  youth,  and  for  a  beauteousness  which 
in  death,  it  may  be,  showed  the  more  resplen- 
dently  than  in  life,  did  breed  in  the  heart  the 
smarting  of  great  desire.  Therefore  she  was 
carried  uncovered  on  the  bier  from  her  dwelling 


84          Of  Poets  and  Needlework 

to  the  place  of  burial,  and  moved  all  men, 
thronging  there  to  see  her,  to  abundant  shed- 
ding of  tears.  And  in  some,  who  before  had 
not  been  aware  of  her,  after  pity  grew  great 
marvel  for  that  she,  in  death,  had  overcome 
that  loveliness  which  had  seemed  insuperable 
while  she  yet  lived.  Among  which  people, 
who  before  had  not  known  her,  there  grew  a 
bitterness  and,  as  it  were,  ground  of  reproach, 
that  they  had  not  been  acquainted  with  so 
fair  a  thing  before  that  hour  when  they  must 
be  shut  off  from  it  for  ever ;  to  know  her  thus 
and  have  perpetual  grief  of  her.  But  truly  in 
her  was  made  manifest  that  which  our  Petrarch 
had  spoken  when  he  said, 

'  Death  showed  him  lovely  in  her  lovely  face.'  " 

This  is  to  write  like  a  gentleman  and  an 
artist,  with  ear  attuned  to  the  subtlest  fall  and 
cadence,  with  scrupulous  weighing  of  words 
that  their  true  outline  shall  hold  clear  and 
sharp.  It  is  intarsiatura,  skilful  and  clean  at 
the  edges.  He  goes  on  to  play  with  his  ham- 
mered thought,  always  as  delicately  and  pre- 
cisely as  before. 

"  Falling,  therefore,  such  an  one  to  death, 


Of  Poets  and  Needlework         85 

all  the  wits  of  Florence,  as  is  seemly  in  so 
public  a  calamity,  lamented  severally  and 
mutually,  some  in  rhyme,  some  in  prose,  the 
ruefulness  of  it ;  and  bound  themselves  to 
exalt  her  excellence  each  after  the  contriving 
of  his  mind :  in  which  company  I,  too,  must 
needs  be ;  I,  too,  mingle  rhymes  with  tears. 
So  I  did  in  the  sonnets  below  rehearsed ; 
whereof  the  first  began  thus  : 

4  O  limpid  shining  star  that  to  thy  beam.' 

"  Night  had  fallen  ;  together  we  walked,  a 
dear  friend  and  I,  together  talking  of  our  com- 
mon sorrow :  and  so  speaking,  the  night  being 
wondrous  clear,  I  lifted  my  eyes  to  a  star  of 
exceeding  brilliancy,  which  appeared  in  the 
West,  of  such  assured  splendour  as  not  alone 
to  excel  other  stars,  but  so  eagerly  to  shine 
that  it  threw  in  shadow  all  the  lights  of 
heaven  about  it.  Whereof  having  great  mar- 
vel, I  turned  to  my  friend,  saying  —  'We 
ought  not  to  wonder  at  this  sight,  seeing  that 
the  soul  of  that  most  gentle  lady  is  of  a  truth 
either  re-informed  in  this,  a  new  star,  or  con- 
joined to  shine  with  it.  Wherefore  there  is  no 
marvel  in  such  exceeding  brightness ;  and  we 


86          Of  Poets  and  Needlework 

who  took  comfort  in  her  living  delights,  may 
even  now  be  appeased  by  her  appearance  in 
this  limpid  star.  And  if  our  vision  for  such  a 
light  is  tender  and  fragile,  we  should  beseech 
her  shade,  that  is  the  god  in  her,  to  make  us 
bolder  by  withholding  some  part  of  her  beam 
that  we  may  sometimes  look  upon  her,  nor 
sear  our  eyes.  But,  to  say  sooth,  this  is  no 
overboldness  in  her,  endowed  as  she  was  with 
all  the  power  of  her  beauty,  that  she  should 
strive  to  shine  more  excellently  that  all  the 
other  stars,  or  even  yet  more  proudly  with 
Phcebus  himself,  asking  of  him  his  very  char- 
iot, that  she,  rather,  may  rule  our  day.  Which 
thing,  if  you  allow  it  without  presumption  in 
our  star,  how  vilely  shows  the  impertinence  of 
Death  to  have  laid  hands  upon  such  loveliness 
and  authority  as  hers.'  And  since  these  my 
reasonings  seemed  of  the  stuff  proper  for  a 
sonnet,  I  took  leave  of  my  friend  and  com- 
posed that  one  which  follows ;  speaking  in  it 
of  the  above  mentioned  star." 

The  sonnet  is  in  the  right  Petrarchian  vein, 
adroit  and  shallow  as  you  please.  With  such 
a  preface  it  could  hardly  be  otherwise ;  the 
invocation  of  the  lady's  shade,  the  twitting  of 


Of  Poets  and  Needle-work         87 

Death  (making  his  Mastership  jig  to  suit  their 
occasions  who  had  of  late  been  in  his  pres- 
ence) and  the  naive  acceptance  of  all  gifts  as 
"  buona  materia  a  un  sonetto."  In  the  end  he 
spins  four  to  her  memory;  then  finds  another 
lady  and  doubles  all  his  superlatives  for  her. 
For  the  star,  he  remembers,  may  have  been 
Lucifer ;  and  Lucifer  is  but  herald  of  the  day. 
To  it  then  !  with  all  the  buona  materia  a  un 
sonetto  the  dawn  can  give  you.  Thus  flour- 
ished poetry  in  the  Tuscan  quattrocentro ;  for 
Politian  was  no  more  poet  than  Lorenzo,  while 
he  was  no  less  dextrous  as  a  rhymer  and  fash- 
ioner of  conceits.  Not  serious  ;  but  piacevole, 
with  an  elegant  iaqucedam  prop  e  divinum;  there- 
fore molto  little.  Pen- work  in  fact,  and  kin  to 
needlework.  Because  Tuscany  saw  choicely- 
wrought  things  pleasing,  and  pleasant  things 
useful,  we  of  to-day  can  see  Florence  as  an 
open-air  Museum.  But  we  wrap  our  own 
Poets  in  heavy  bindings  and  let  them  lie  on 
drawing-room  tables  in  company  of  Whitaker's 
Almanac  and  an  album  of  photographs.  Well, 
well !  We  must  teach  them  to  say,  Philistia, 
be  thou  glad  of  me,  I  suppose. 


VI 
THE  SOUL  OF  A  FACT 

j?N  the  days  when  it  was  verging  on  a 
[  question  whether  a  man  could  be  at 
» the  same  time  a  good  Christian  and 
an  artist,  the  chosen  subjects  of  painting  were 
significant  of  the  approaching  crisis  —  those 
glaring  moral  contrasts  in  history  which,  for 
want  of  a  happier  term,  we  call  dramatic. 
Why  this  was  so,  whether  Art  took  a  hint  from 
Politics,  or  had  withdrawn  her  more  intimate 
manifestations  to  await  likelier  times,  is  a 
question  it  were  long  to  answer.  The  sub- 
jects, at  any  rate,  were  such  as  the  Greeks, 
with  their  surer  instincts  and  saving  grace  of 
sanity  in  matters  of  this  kind,  either  forbore 
to  meddle  with  or  treated  as  decoratively  as 
they  treated  acanthus-wreaths.  To-day  we 
call  them  "  effective  "  subjects;  we  find  they 
produce  shocks  and  tremors ;  we  think  it 
braces  us  to  shudder,  and  we  think  that  Art 
is  a  kind  of  emotional  pill ;  we  measure  Art 


The  Soul  of  a  Fact  89 

quantitatively,  and  we  say  that  we  "  know 
what  we  like."  And  doubtless  there  is  some- 
thing piquant  in  the  quivering  produced,  for 
example,  by  the  sight  of  white  innocence  flut- 
tering helpless  in  a  grey  shadow  of  lust.  In 
the  days  when  the  Bible  was  still  a  god  that 
piquancy  was  found  in  a  Massacre  of  the  Inno- 
cents :  in  our  own  time  we  find  it  in  a  Faust 
and  Gretchen,  in  the  Dore  Galjery,  or  in  the 
Royal  Academy.  It  was  a  like  appreciation 
of  the  certain  effect  of  vivid  contrasts  as 
powerful  didactic  agents  (coupled  with,  or 
drowning,  a  something  purer  and  more  devout) 
which  had  inspired  those  most  beautiful  and 
distinctive  of  all  the  symbols  of  Catholicism, 
the  Adoration  of  the  Kings,  the  Christ-child 
cycle,  and  which  raised  the  Holy  Child  and 
Maid-Mother  to  their  place  above  the  mystic 
tapers  and  the  Cross.  Naturally  the  Old 
Testament,  that  garner  of  grim  tales,  proved  a 
rich  mine :  David  and  Golias,  Susanna  and 
the  Elders,  the  Sacrifice  of  Isaac,  Jethro^s 
daughter.  But  the  story  of  Judith  did  not 
come  to  be  painted  in  Tuscan  sanctuaries 
until  Donatello  of  Florence  had  first  cast  her 
in  bronze  at  the  prayer  of  Cosimo p *at ler  p wtrice. 


90  The  Soul  of  a  Fact 

Her  entry  was  dramatic  enough  at  least : 
Dame  Fortune  may  well  have  sniggered  as 
she  spun  round  the  city  on  her  ball.  Cosimo 
the  patriot  and  his  splendid  grandson  were  no 
sooner  dead  and  their  brood  sent  flying,  than 
Donatello's  Judith  was  set  up  in  the  Piazza  as 
a  fit  emblem  of  rescue  from  tyranny,  with  the 
vigorous  motto,  to  make  assurance  double, 
"EXEMPLVM  SA'LVTIS  PVBLIC^E 
GIVES  POSVERE."  Savonarola,  who  knew 
his  Bible,  saw  here  a  keener  application  of 
Judith's  pious  sin.  A  few  years  later  that  same 
Judith  saw  him  burn.  Thus,  as  an  incarnate 
cynicism,  she  will  pass :  as  a  work  of  art  she 
is  admittedly  one  of  her  great  creator's  failures. 
Her  neighbour  Perseus  of  the  Loggia  makes 
this  only  too  plain  !  For  Cellini  has  seized 
the  right  moment  in  a  deed  of  horror,  and 
Donatello,  with  all  his  downrightness  and  grip 
of  the  fact,  has  hit  upon  the  wrong.  It  is 
fatal  to  freeze  a  moment  of  time  into  an  eter- 
nity of  waiting.  His  Judith  will  never  strike  : 
her  arm  is  palsied  where  it  swings.  The 
Damoclean  sword  is  a  fine  incident  for  poetry ; 
but  Holofernes  was  no  Damocles,  and,  if  he 
had  been,  it  were  intolerable  to  cast  his 


The  Soul  of  a  Fact  91 

experience  in  bronze.  Donatello  has  essayed 
that  thing  impossible  for  sculpture,  to  arrest 
a  moment  instead  of  denote  a  permanent 
attribute.  Art  is  adjectival,  is  it  not,  O 
Donatello  ?  Her  business  is  to  qualify  facts, 
to  say  what  things  are,  not  to  state  them,  to 
affirm  that  they  are.  A  sculptured //////M  was 
done  not  long  afterwards,  carved,  as  we  shall 
see,  with  a  burin  on  a  plate  :  and  the  man 
who  so  carved  her  was  a  painter. 

Meantime,  pari passu,  almost,  a  painter  who 
was  a  poet  was  trying  his  hand  ;  a  man  who 
knew  his  Bible  and  his  mythology  and  was 
equally  at  home  with  either.  Perhaps  it  is 
not  extravagant  to  say  that  you  cannot  be  an 
artist  unless  you  are  at  home  with  mythology, 
unless  mythology  is  the  swiftest  and  most 
direct  expression  of  your  being,  so  that  you- 
can  be  measured  by  it  as  a  man  is  known  by 
his  books,  or  a  woman  by  her  clothes,  her  way 
of  bowing,  her  amusements,  or  her  charities. 
For  mythopceia  is  just  this,  the  incarnating 
the  spirit  of  natural  fact ;  and  the  generic 
name  of  that  power  is  Art.  A  kind  of  creation, 
a  clothing  of  essence  in  matter,  an  hyposta- 
tising  (if  you  will  have  it)  of  an  object  of 


92  The  Soul  of  a  Fact 

intuition  within  the  folds  of  an  object  of  sense. 
Lessing  did  not  dig  so  deep  as  his  Greek 
Voltaire  (whose  "  dazzling  antithesis,"  after 
all,  touches  the  root  of  the  matter)  for  he  did 
not  see  that  rhythmic  extension  in  time  or  space, 
as  the  case  may  be,  with  all  that  that  implies  — 
colour,  value,  proportion,  all  the  convincing 
incidents  of  form  —  is  simply  the  mode  of  all 
arts,  the  thing  with  which  Art's  substance 
must  be  interpenetrated,  until  the  two  form  a 
whole,  lovely,  golden,  irresistible,  and  inevitable 
as  Nature's  pieces  are.  This  substance,  I 
have  said,  is  the  spirit  of  natural  fact.  And  so 
mythology  is  Art  at  its  simplest  and  barest 
(where  the  bodily  medium  is  neither  word,  nor 
texture  of  stone,  nor  dye),  the  parent  art  from 
which  all  the  others  were,  so  to  speak,  begot- 
ten by  man's  need.  Thus  much  of  explana- 
tion, I  am  sorry  to  say,  is  necessary,  before 
we  turn  to  our  mytho-poet  of  Florence,  to  see 
what  he  made  out  of  the  story  of  Judith. 

First  of  all,  though,  what  has  the  story  of 
Judith  to  do  with  mythology  ?  It  is  a  legend, 
one  of  the  finest  of  Semitic  legends ;  and 
between  legend  and  myth  there  is  as  great  a 
gulf  as  between  Jew  and  Greek.  I  believe 


The  Soul  of  a  Fact  93 

there  are  no  myths  proper  to  Israel  —  I  do 
not  see  how  such  magnificent  egoists  could 
contract  to  the  necessary  state  of  awe  —  and 
I  do  not  know  that  there  are  any  legends 
proper  to  Greece  which  are  divorced  from  real 
myths.  For  where  a  myth  is  the  incarnation 
of  the  spirit  of  natural  fact,  a  legend  is  the 
embellishment  of  an  historical  event :  a  very 
different  thing.  A  natural  fact  is  permanent 
and  elemental,  an  historical  event  is  transient 
and  superficial.  Take  one  instance  out  of  a 
score.  The  rainbow  links  heaven  and  earth. 
Iris  then,  to  the  myth-making  Greek,  was 
Jove's  messenger,  intermediary  between  God 
and  Man.  That  is  to  incarnate  a  constant, 
natural  fact.  Plato  afterwards,  making  her 
daughter  of  Thaumas,  incarnated  a  fact, 
psychological,  but  none  the  less  constant,  none 
the  less  natural.  But  to  say,  as  the  legend- 
loving  Jew  said,  that  Noah  floated  his  ark 
over  a  drowning  world  and  secured  for  his 
posterity  a  standing  covenant  with  God,  who 
then  and  once  for  all  set  his  bow  in  the 
heavens ;  that  is  to  indicate,  somewhere,  in 
the  dim  backward  and  abysm  of  time,  an  his- 
torical event.  The  rainbow  is  suffered  as  the 


94  The  Soul  of  a  Fact 

skirt  of  the  robe  of  Noah,  who  was  an  ancestor 
of  Israel.  So  the  Judith  poem  may  be  a 
decorated  event,  or  it  may  be  the  barest  his- 
tory in  a  splendid  epical  setting :  the  point  to 
remember  is  that  it  cannot  be,  as  legend,  a 
subject  for  creative  art.  The  artist,  in  the 
language  of  Neo-Platonism,  is  a  demiurge  ;  he 
only  of  men  can  convert  dead  things  into  life. 
And  now  we  will  go  into  the  Uffizi. 

Mr.  Ruskin,  in  his  petulant-playful  way,  has 
touched  upon  the  feeling  of  amaze  most  people 
have  who  look  for  the  first  time  at  Botticelli's 
Judith  tripping  smoothly  and  lightly  over  the 
hill-country,  her  steadfast  maid  dogging  with 
intent  patient  eyes  every  step  she  takes. 
You  say  it  is  flippant,  affected,  pedantic.  For 
answer,  I  refer  you  to  the  sage  himself,  who, 
from  his  point  of  view  —  that  painting  may 
fairly  deal  with  a  chapter  of  history  —  is  per- 
fectly right.  The  prevailing  strain  of  the  story 
is  the  strength  of  weakness  —  ex  dulci fortitude  ^ 
to  invert  the  old  enigma.  "  O  God,  O  my  God, 
hear  me  also,  a  widow.  Break  down  their 
stateliness  by  the  hand  of  a  woman  !  "  It  is 
the  refrain  that  runs  through  the  whole  history 
of  Israel,  that  reasonable  complacency  of  a 


The  Soiil  of  a  Fact  95 

little  people  in  their  God-fraught  destiny. 
And,  withal,  a  streak  of  savage  spite  :  that  the 
audacious  oppressor  shall  be  done  scornfully 
to  death.  There  is  the  motive  of  Jael  and 
Sisera  too.  So  "  she  smote  twice  upon  his 
neck  with  all  her  might,  and  she  took  away 
his  head  from  him,  and  tumbled  his  body 
down  from  the  bed."  Ho!  what  a  fate  for 
the  emissary  of  the  Great  King.  Wherefore, 
once  more,  the  jubilant  paradox,  "  The  Lord 
hath  smitten  him  by  the  hand  of  a  woman  !  " 
That  is  it :  the  amazing,  thrilling  antithesis 
insisted  on  over  and  over  again  by  the  old 
Hebrew  bard.  "  Her  sandals  ravished  his 
eyes,  her  beauty  took  his  mind  prisoner,  and 
the  fauchion  passed  through  his  neck."  That 
is  the  leit-motif:  Sandro  the  poet  knew  it 
perfectly  well  and  taught  it  to  the  no  small 
comfort  of  Mr.  Ruskin  and  his  men.  Giuditta, 
dainty,  blue-eyed,  a  girl  still  and  three  years  a 
widow,  flits  homeward  through  a  spring  land- 
scape of  grey  and  green  and  the  smile  of  a 
milky  sky,  being  herself  the  dominant  of  the 
chord,  with  her  bough  of  slipt  olive  and  her 
jagged  scimitar,  with  her  pretty  blue  fal-lals 
smocked  and  puffed,  and  her  yellow  curls 


96  The  Soul  of  a  Fact 

floating  over  her  shoulders.  On  her  slim  feet 
are  the  sandals  that  ravished  his  eyes ;  all  her 
maiden  bravery  is  dancing  and  fluttering  like 
harebells  in  the  wind.  Behind  her  plods  the 
slave-girl  folded  in  an  orange  scarf,  bearing 
that  shapeless,  nameless  burden  of  hers,  the 
head  of  the  grim  Lord  Holofernes.  Oh,  for 
that,  it  is  the  legend  itself !  For  look  at  the 
girl's  eyes.  What  does  their  dreamy  solem- 
nity mean  if  not "  the  Lord  hath  smitten  him  by 
the  hand  of  a  woman  "  ?  One  other  delicate 
bit  of  symbolising  he  has  allowed  himself, 
which  I  may  not  omit.  You  are  to  see  by 
whom  this  deed  was  done :  by  a  woman  who 
has  unsexed  herself.  Judith  is  absorbed  in 
her  awful  service :  her  robe  trails  on  the 
ground  and  clings  about  her  knees ;  she  is 
unconscious  of  the  hindrance.  The  gates  of 
Bethulia  are  in  sight ;  the  Chaldean  horsemen 
are  abroad,  but  she  has  no  anxiety  to  escape. 
She  is  swift  because  her  life  just  now  courses 
swiftly ;  but  there  is  no  haste.  The  maid,  you 
shall  mark,  picks  up  her  skirts  with  careful 
hand,  and  steps  out  the  more  lustily  for  it. 

So  far  Botticelli  the  poet,  and  so  far  also 
Mr.  Ruskin,  reader  of  pictures.     What  says 


The  Soul  of  a  Fact  97 

Botticelli  the  painter  ?  Had  he  no  instincts  to 
tell  him  that  his  art  could  have  little  to  say 
to  a  legend  ?  Or  that  a  legend  might  be  the 
subject  of  an  epic  (here,  indeed,  was  an  epic 
ready  made),  might,  under  conditions,  be  the 
subject  of  a  drama ;  but  could  not,  under  any 
conditions,  be  alone  the  subject  of  a  picture  ? 
I  don't  for  a  moment  suggest  that  he  had,  or 
that  any  artist  ever  goes  to  work  in  this  double- 
entry,  methodical  way,  but  are  we  entitled  to 
say  that  he  was  not  influenced  by  his  predilec- 
tions, his  determinations  as  a  draughtsman, 
when  he  squared  himself  to  illustrate  the 
Bible  ?  We  say  that  the  subject  of  a  picture 
is  the  spirit  of  natural  fact.  If  Botticelli  was 
a  painter,  that  is  what  he  must  have  looked 
for,  and  must  have  found,  in  every  picture  he 
painted.  Where,  then,  was  he  to  get  his 
natural  facts  in  the  story  of  Judith  ?  What 
is,  in  that  story,  the  natural,  essential  (as 
opposed  to  the  historical,  fleeting)  fact?  It 
is  murder.  Judith's  deed  was  what  the  old 
Scots  law  incisively  calls  slauchter.  It  may  be 
glossed  over  as  assassination  or  even  execu- 
tion —  in  fact,  in  Florence,  where  Giuliano 
was  soon  to  be  taken  off,  it  did  not  fail  to  be 


98  The  Soul  of  a  Fact 

so  called :  it  remains,  however,  just  murder. 
Botticelli,  not  shirking  the  position  at  all, 
judged  murder  to  be  a  natural  fact,  and  its 
spirit  or  essence  swiftness  and  stealth.  Chau- 
cer, let  us  note,  had  been  of  the  same  mind : 

"  The  smyler  with  the  knyf  under  his  cloke," 

and  so  on,  in  lines  not  to  be  matched  for 
hasty  and  dreadful  suggestion.  Swiftness  and 
stealth,  the  ambush,  the  averted  face  and  the 
sudden  stab,  are  the  standing  elements  of 
murder :  pare  off  all  the  rest,  you  come  down 
to  that.  Your  staring  looks,  your  blood,  your 
"  chirking,"  are  accidentals.  They  may  be 
there  (for  each  of  us  carries  a  carcase),  but 
the  horror  of  sudden  death  is  above  them  :  a 
man  may  strangle  with  his  thoughts  cleaner 
than  with  his  pair  of  hands.  And  as  "  matter  " 
is  but  the  stuff  wherewith  Nature  works,  and 
she  is  only  insulted,  not  defied,  when  we  flout 
or  mangle  it,  so  it  is  against  the  high  dignity 
of  Art  to  insist  upon  the  carrion  she  must  use. 
She  will  press,  here  the  terror,  there  the  radi- 
ance, of  essential  fact ;  she  will  leave  to  us, 
seeing  it  in  her  face,  to  add  mentally  the  poor 
stage  properties  we  have  grown  to  trust.  No 


The  Soul  of  a  Fact  99 

blood,  if  you  please.  Therefore,  in  Botticelli's 
Judith,  nothing  but  the  essentials  are  insisted 
on  :  the  rest  we  instantly  imagine,  but  it  is 
not  there  to  be  sensed.  The  panel  is  in  a 
tremor.  So  swift  and  secret  is  Judith,  so 
furtive  the  maid,  we  need  no  hurrying  horse- 
men to  remind  us  of  her  oath,  —  "  Hear  me, 
and  I  will  do  a  thing  which  shall  go  through- 
out all  generations  to  the  children  of  our 
nation."  Sudden  death  in  the  air ;  nature 
has  been  outraged.  But  there  is  no  drop  of 
blood  —  the  thin  scarlet  line  along  the  sword- 
edge  is  a  symbol  if  you  will  —  the  pale  head 
in  the  cloth  is  a  mere  "  thing " :  yet  we  all 
know  what  has  been  done.  Mr.  Ruskin  is 
wrong  to  dwell  here  upon  the  heroism  of  the 
heroine,  the  beneficence  of  the  crime,  the  ex- 
hilaration of  the  patriot ;  he  is  traducing  the 
painter  by  so  praising  the  poet.  All  those 
things  may  be  there  :  and  why  should  they 
not  ?  But  it  is  a  pity  to  insist  upon  them  until 
you  have  no  space  for  the  pictorial  something 
which  is  there  too,  and  makes  the  picture. 

Other  Judiths  there  are  ;  two  here,  one  next 
door  in  the  Pitti,  any  number  scattered  over 
the  galleries  of  Europe.  There  are  Jacopo 


ioo  The  Soul  of  a  Fact 

Palma  of  Venice  and  Allori  of  Florence  who 
used  the  old  story,  the  one  to  perpetuate  a  fat 
blonde,  the  other  a  handsome  actress  in  a 
"  strong  "  situation  ;  there  is  Sodoma ;  there 
are  Horace  Vernet  and  the  moderns,  the 
Wests  and  Haydons  of  our  grandfathers.  It 
is  a  pet  subject  of  the  Salon.  These  men 
have  vulgarised  an  epic,  and  smirched  poetry 
and  painting  alike  for  the  sake  of  a  tawdry 
sensation.  But  enough  :  let  us  look  at  one 
more.  Mantegna's  is  worth  looking  at.  It  is 
a  pen  drawing,  often  repeated,  best  known  by 
the  fine  engraving  he  finally  made  of  it.  I 
think  it  is  the  best  murder  picture  in  the 
world.  To  begin  with  the  literary  interest  of 
the  story  is  practically  gone.  This  wild,  ter- 
rible, beautiful  woman  may  be  Judith  if  you 
choose :  she  might  be  Medea  or  Agave,  or 
Salome,  or  the  Lucrezia  Borgia  of  popular 
fancy  and  Donizetti.  The  fact  is  she  is  part 
of  a  scheme  whose  object  is  the  aesthetic 
aspect  of  murder  —  murder  considered  as  one 
of  the  fine  arts.  Andrea  was  able,  and  I 
know  not  that  anybody  else  of  his  day  could 
have  been  able,  to  contemplate  murder  purely 
objectively  with  no  thought  of  its  ethical  rela- 


The  Soul  of  a  Fact  101 

tions.  Botticelli  had  been  fired  by  the  heroism 
and  the  moral  grandeur  of  the  special  cir- 
cumstances of  a  given  case  :  down  they  went 
into  his  picture  with  what  rightly  belonged  to 
it.  There  is  none  of  that  here.  And  Man- 
tegna  makes  other  distinctions  in  the  field 
common  to  both  of  them.  Murder,  for  him, 
did  not  essentially  subsist  in  its  shocking  sud- 
denness ;  it  held  something  more  specific,  a 
witchery  of  its  own,  a  macabre  fascination,  a 
mystery.  Leonardo  felt  it  when  he  drew  his 
Medusa :  Shelley  wrote  it  down  "  the  tem- 
pestuous loveliness  of  terror."  Thus  it  had, 
for  Mantegna,  an  unique  emotional  habit 
which  set  it  off  from  other  vice  and  gave  it  a 
positive,  appreciable,  aesthetic  value  of  its 
own.  With  even  more  unerrancy  than  Botti- 
celli, he  gripped  the  adjectival  and  qualifying 
function  of  his  art.  He  saw  that  crime,  too, 
had  its  pictorial  side.  When  Keats,  writing 
of  the  Lamia  sloughing  her  snake-folds,  tells  us 
how  — 

"  She  writhed  about,  convulsed  with  scarlet  pain  ;" 

or  when,  of  organ  music,  he  says  — 

«  Up  aloft 
The  silver,  snarling  trumpets  'gan  to  chide," 


IO2  The  Soul  of  a  Fact 

he  is  simply,  in  his  own  art  and  with  his  proper 
methods,  getting  precisely  the  same  kind  of 
effect  :  he  is  incarnating  the  soul  of  a  fact. 
And  so  Mantegna,  with  his  Roman  kindness 
for  whatever  had  breath  and  vigour  and  bold- 
ness of  design,  carved  his  Jttdith  on  the  lines 
of  a  Vestal  Virgin,  and  gave  her  the  rapt, 
daemonic  features  of  the  Tragic  Muse.  And, 
with  his  full  share  of  that  unhealthy  craving 
for  the  mere  nastiness  of  crime,  that  Amina- 
trait  which  distinguished  the  later  Empire  and 
its  correlate  the  Renaissance,  he  drew  together 
the  elements  of  his  picture  to  express  an  emi- 
nently characteristic  conception  of  curious 
murder.  What  amplitude  of  outline ;  what 
severe  grace  of  drapery !  And  what  mad 
affectation  of  attention  to  the  ghastly  baggage 
she  is  preparing  for  her  flight !  I  can  only 
instance  for  a  parallel  the  pitiful  case  of  the 
young  Ophelia,  decked  with  flowers  and  weeds, 
and  faltering  in  her  pretty  treble  songs  about 
lechery  and  dead  bodies.  It  needs  strong 
men  to  do  these  things ;  men  who  have  lived 
out  all  that  the  world  can  offer  them  of  heaven 
and  hell,  and,  with  the  tolerance  of  maturity, 
are  in  the  mind  to  see  something  worth  a 


The  Soul  of  a  Fact  103 

thought  in  either.  There  is  in  murder  some- 
thing more  horrible  than  blood, —  the  spirit 
that  breeds  blood  and  plays  with  it.  Wierckz 
and  his  kindred  of  the  dissecting-room  and 
accidents'-ward  are  passed  by  Mantegna, 
who  gives  no  vulgar  illusion  of  gaping  wounds 
and  jetting  blood ;  but,  instead,  holds  up  to 
us  a  beautiful  woman  daintily  fingering  a 
corpse. 


VII 
QUATTROCENTISTERIA 

(HOW  SANDRO  BOTTICELLI  SAW  SIMONETTA  IN 
THE  SPRING) 

at  Fiesole,  among  the  olives  and 

chestnuts   which   cloud   the    steeps, 

i) 

jthe  magnificent  Lorenzo  was  enter- 
taining his  guests  on  a  morning  in  April. 
The  olives  were  just  whitening  to  silver ;  they 
stretched  in  a  trembling  sea  down  the  slope. 
Beyond  lay  Florence,  misty  and  golden  ;  and 
round  about  were  the  mossy  hills,  cut  sharp 
and  definite  against  a  grey-blue  sky,  printed 
with  starry  buildings  and  sober  ranks  of 
cypress.  The  sun  catching  the  mosaics  of 
San  Miniato  and  the  brazen  cross  on  the 
fagade,  made  them  shine  like  sword-blades  in 
the  quiver  of  the  heat  between.  For  the  val- 
ley was  just  a  lake  of  hot  air,  hot  and  murky 
—  "fever  weather,"  said  the  people  in  the 


^uattrocentisteria  105 

streets  —  with  a  glaring  summer  sun  let  in 
between  two  long  spells  of  fog.  'T  was  unnat- 
ural at  that  season,  via;  but  the  blessed 
Saints  sent  the  weather  and  one  could  only 
be  careful  what  one  was  about  at  sun-down. 

Up  at  the  Villa,  with  brisk  morning  airs 
rustling  overhead,  in  the  cool  shades  of  trees 
and  lawns,  it  was  pleasant  to  lie  still,  watch- 
ing these  things,  while  a  silky  young  exquisite 
sang  to  his  lute  a  not  too  audacious  ballad 
about  Selvaggia,  or  Becchina  and  the  saucy 
Prior  of  Sant'  Onofrio.  He  sang  well  too, 
that  dark-eyed  boy ;  the  girl  at  whose  feet  he 
was  crouched  was  laughing  and  blushing  at 
once ;  and,  being  very  fair,  she  blushed  hotly. 
She  dared  not  raise  her  eyes  to  look  into  his, 
and  he  knew  it  and  was  quietly  measuring  his 
strength  —  it  was  quite  a  comedy  !  At  each 
wanton  refrain  he  lowered  his  voice  to  a  whis- 
per and  bent  a  little  forward.  And  the  girl's 
laughter  became  hysterical ;  she  was  shaking 
with  the  effort  to  control  herself.  At  last  she 
looked  up  with  a  sort  of  sob  in  her  breath 
and  saw  his  mocking  smile  and  the  gleam  of 
the  wild  beast  in  his  eyes.  She  grew  white, 
rose  hastily  and  turned  away  to  join  a  group 


106  £>uattrocentisteria 

of  ladies  sitting  apart.  A  man  with  a  heavy, 
rather  sullen  face  and  a  bush  of  yellow  hair 
falling  over  his  forehead  in  a  wave,  was  stand- 
ing aside  watching  all  this.  He  folded  his 
arms  and  scowled  under  his  big  brows ;  and 
when  the  girl  moved  away  his  eyes  followed 
her. 

The  lad  ended  his  song  in  a  broad  sarcasm 
amid  bursts  of  laughter  and  applause.  The 
Magnificent,  sitting  in  his  carved  chair,  nursed 
his  sallow  face  and  smiled  approval.  "  My 
brother  boasts  his  invulnerability,"  he  said, 
turning  to  his  neighbour,  "  let  him  look  to  it, 
Messer  Cupido  will  have  him  yet.  Already, 
we  can  see,  he  has  been  let  into  some  of  the 
secrets  of  the  bower."  The  man  bowed  and 
smiled  deferentially.  "  Signer  Giuliano  has  all 
the  qualities  to  win  the  love  of  ladies,  and  to 
retain  it.  Doubtless  he  awaits  his  destiny. 
The  Wise  Man  has  said  that  "  Beauty.  .  .  . " 
The  young  poet  enlarged  on  his  text  with 
some  fire  in  his  thin  cheeks,  while  the  com- 
pany kept  very  silent.  It  was  much  to  their 
liking ;  even  Giuliano  was  absorbed ;  he  sat 
on  the  ground  clasping  one  knee  between  his 
hands,  smiling  upwards  into  vacancy,  as  a 


£>uattrocentisteria  107 

man  does  whose  imagination  is  touched. 
Lorenzo  nursed  his  sallow  face  and  beat  time 
to  the  orator's  cadences  with  his  foot;  he, 
too,  was  abstracted  and  smiling.  At  the  end 
he  spoke;  "Our  Marsilio  himself  has  never 
said  nobler  words,  my  Agnolo.  The  mantle 
of  the  Attic  prophet  has  descended  indeed 
upon  this  Florence.  And  Beauty,  as  thou 
sayest,  is  from  heaven.  But  where  shall  it  be 
found  here  below,  and  how  discerned  ?"  The 
man  of  the  heavy  jowl  was  standing  with 
folded  arms,  looking  from  under  his  brows  at 
the  group  of  girls.  Lorenzo  saw  everything ; 
he  noticed  him.  "  Our  Sandro  will  tell  us  it 
is  yonder.  The  Star  of  Genoa  shines  over 
Florence  and  our  poor  little  constellations 
are  gone  out.  Ecco,  my  Sandro,  gravest  and 
hardiest  of  painters,  go  summon  Madonna 
Simonetta  and  her  handmaidens  to  our  Sym- 
posium. Agnolo  will  speak  further  to  us  of 
this  sovereignty  of  Beauty." 

The  painter  bowed  his  head  and  moved 
away. 

A  green  alley  vaulted  with  thick  ilex  and 
myrtle  formed  a  tapering  vista  where  the 
shadows  lay  misty  blue  and  pale  shafts  of 


io8  ^uattrocentisteria 

light  pierced  through  fitfully.  At  the  far  end 
it  ran  out  into  an  open  space  and  a  splash  of 
sunshine.  A  marble  Ganymede  with  lifted 
arms  rose  in  the  middle  like  a  white  flame. 
The  girls  were  there,  intent  upon  some  com- 
merce of  their  own,  flashing  hither  and  thither 
over  the  grass  in  a  flutter  of  saffron  and  green 
and  crimson.  Simonetta  —  Sandro  could  see 
—  was  a  little  apart,  a  very  tall,  isolated  fig- 
ure, clear  and  cold  in  a  recess  of  shade, 
standing  easily,  resting  on  one  hip  with  her 
hands  behind  her.  A  soft,  straight  robe  of 
white  clipped  her  close  from  shoulder  to  heel ; 
the  lines  of  her  figure  were  thrust  forward  by 
her  poise.  His  eye  followed  the  swell  of  her 
bosom,  very  gentle  and  girlish,  and  the  long 
folds  of  her  dress  falling  thence  to  her  knee. 
While  she  stood  there,  proud  and  remote,  a 
chance  beam  of  the  sun  shone  on  her  head  so 
that  it  seemed  to  burn.  "  Heaven  salutes  the 
Queen  of  Heaven, — Venus  Urania!"  With 
an  odd  impulse  he  stopped,  crossed  himself, 
and  then  hurried  on. 

He  told  his  errand  to  her ;  having  no  eyes 
for  the  others. 

"  Signorina  —  I  am  to  acquaint  her  Serenity 


£>uattrocentisteria  109 

that  the  divine  poet  Messer  Agnolo  is  to 
speak  of  the  sovereign  power  of  beauty ;  of 
the  Heavenly  Beauty  whereof  Plato  taught, 
as  it  is  belie ved." 

Simonetta  arched  a  slim  neck  and  looked 
down  at  the  obsequious  speaker,  or  at  least  he 
thought  so.  And  he  saw  how  fair  she  was,  a 
creature  how  delicate  and  gracious,  with  grey 
eyes  frank  and  wide,  and  full  red  lips  where  a 
smile  (nervous  and  a  little  wistful,  he  judged, 
rather  than  defiant)  seemed  always  to  hover. 
Such  clear-cut,  high  beauty  made  him  ashamed ; 
but  her  colouring  (for  he  was  a  painter)  made 
his  heart  beat.  She  was  no  ice-bound  shadow 
of  deity  then  !  but  flesh  and  blood ;  a  girl  — 
a  child,  of  timid,  soft  contours,  of  warm  roses 
and  blue  veins  laced  in  a  pearly  skin.  And 
she  was  crowned  with  a  heavy  wealth  of  red- 
gold  hair,  twisted  in  great  coils,  bound  about 
with  pearls,  and  smouldering  like  molten  metal 
where  it  fell  rippling  along  her  neck.  She 
dazzled  him,  so  that  he  could  not  face  her  or 
look  further.  His  eyes  dropped.  He  stood 
before  her  moody,  disconcerted. 

The  girls,  who  had  dissolved  their  company 
at  his  approach,  listened  to  what  he  had  to 


no  £>uattrocentisteria 

say  linked  in  knots  of  twos  and  threes.  They 
needed  no  excuses  to  return  ;  some  were  philos- 
ophers in  their  way,  philosophers  and  poet- 
esses ;  some  had  left  their  lovers  in  the  ring 
round  Lorenzo.  So  they  went  down  the  green 
alley  still  locked  by  the  arms,  by  the  waist  or 
shoulders.  They  did  not  wait  for  Simonetta. 
She  was  a  Genoese,  and  proud  as  the  snow. 
Why  did  Giuliano  love  her  ?  Z>/Whe  love  her, 
indeed?  He  was  bewitched  then,  for  she  was 
cold,  and  a  brazen  creature  in  spite  of  it. 
How  dare  she  bare  her  neck  so  !  Oh  !  't  was 
Genoese.  "  Uomini  senza  fede  e  donne  senza 
vergogna,"  they  quoted  as  they  ran. 

And  Simonetta  walked  alone  down  the  way 
with  her  head  high ;  but  Sandro  stepped 
behind,  at  the  edge  of  her  trailing  white 
robe.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  The  poet  was  leaning  against  an 
ancient  alabaster  vase,  soil-stained,  yellow  with 
age  and  its  long  sojourn  in  the  loam,  but  with 
traces  of  its  carved  garlands  clinging  to  it 
still.  He  fingered  it  lovingly  as  he  talked. 
His  oration  was  concluding,  and  his  voice  rose 
high  and  tremulous;  there  were  sparks  in  his 
hollow  eyes.  ...  "  And  as  this  sovereign 


Quattrocentisteria  1 1 1 

Beauty  is  queen  of  herself,  so  she  is  subject  to 
none  other,  owns  to  no  constraining  custom, 
fears  no  reproach  of  man.  What  she  wills,  that 
has  the  force  of  a  law.  Being  Beauty,  her  deeds 
are  lovely  and  worshipful.  Therefore  Phryne, 
whom  men,  groping  in  darkness  and  the  dull 
ways  of  eartlx,  dubbed  courtesan,  shone  in  a 
Court  of  Law  before  the  assembled  nobles  of 
Athens,  naked  and  undismayed  in  the  blaze  of 
her  fairness.  And  Athens  discerned  the  god- 
dess and  trembled.  Yes,  and  more ;  even  as 
Aphrodite,  whose  darling  she  was,  arose  pure 
from  the  foam,  so  she  too  came  up  out  of  the 
sea  in  the  presence  of  a  host,  and  the  Athe- 
nians, seeing  no  shame,  thought  none,  but, 
rather,  reverenced  her  the  more.  For  what 
shame  is  it  that  the  body  of  one  so  radiant  in 
clear  perfections  should  be  revealed  ?  Is  then 
the  garment  of  the  soul,  her  very  mould 
and  image,  so  shameful  ?  Shall  we  seek  to 
know  her  essence  by  the  garment  of  a  gar- 
ment, or  hope  to  behold  that  which  really  is  in 
the  shadows  we  cast  upon  shadows  ?  Shame 
is  of  the  brute  dullard  who  thinks  shame. 
The  evil  ever  sees  Evil  glaring  at  him.  Plato, 
the  golden-mouthed,  with  the  soul  of  pure  fire, 


112  ^uattrocentisteria 

has  said  the  truth  of  this  matter  in  his  De 
Republic^,,  the  fifth  book,  where  he  speaks  of 
young  maids  sharing  the  exercise  of  the  Palaes- 
tra, yea,  and  the  Olympic  contests  even  !  For 
he  says,  '  Let  the  wives  of  our  wardens  bare 
themselves,  for  their  virtue  will  be  a  robe  ;  and 
let  them  share  the  toils  of  war  and  defend 
their  country.  And  for  the  man  who  laughs 
at  naked  women  exercising  their  bodies  for 
high  reasons,  his  laughter  is  a  fruit  of  unripe 
wisdom,  and  he  himself  knows  not  what  he  is 
about ;  for  that  is  ever  the  best  of  sayings  that 
the  useful  is  the  noble  and  the  hurtful  the 
base.'  ..." 

There  was  a  pause.  The  name  of  Plato 
had  had  a  strange  effect  upon  the  company. 
You  would  have  said  they  had  suddenly  entered 
a  church  and  had  felt  all  lighter  interests  sink 
under  the  weight  of  the  dim,  echoing  nave. 
After  a  few  moments  the  poet  spoke  again  in 
a  quieter  tone,  but  his  voice  had  lost  none  of 
the  unction  which  had  enriched  it.  ... 
"  Beauty  is  queen  :  by  the  virtue  of  Deity,  whose 
image  she  is,  she  reigns,  lifts  up,  fires.  Let 
us  beware  how  we  tempt  Deity  lest  we  perish 
ourselves.  Actaeon  died  when  he  gazed  unbid- 


£>uattrocentisteria  113 

den  upon  the  pure  body  of  Artemis ;  but 
Artemis  herself  rayed  her  splendour  upon 
Endymion,  and  Endymion  is  among  the  immor- 
tals. We  fall  when  we  rashly  confront  Beauty, 
but  that  Beauty  who  comes  unawares  may 
nerve  our  souls  to  wing  to  heaven."  He 
ended  on  a  resonant  note,  and  then,  still  look- 
ing out  over  the  valley,  sank  into  his  seat. 
Lorenzo,  with  a  fine  humility,  got  up  and 
kissed  his  thin  hand.  Giuliano  looked  at 
Simonetta,  trying  to  recall  her  gaze,  but  she 
remained  standing  in  her  place,  seeing  nothing 
of  her  companions.  She  was  thinking  of 
something,  frowning  a  little  and  biting  her  lip, 
her  hands  were  before  her ;  her  slim  fingers 
twisted  and  locked  themselves  nervously,  like 
a  tangle  of  snakes.  Then  she  tossed  her 
head,  as  a  young  horse  might,  and  looked  at 
Giuliano  suddenly,  full  in  the  eyes.  He  rose 
to  meet  her  with  a  deprecating  smile,  cap  in 
hand  —  but  she  walked  past  him,  almost 
brushing  him  with  her  gown,  but  never  flinch- 
ing her  full  gaze,  threaded  her  way  through 
the  group  to  the  back,  behind  the  poet,  where 
Sandro  was.  He  had  seen  her  coming,  indeed 
he  had  watched  her  furtively  throughout  the 


H4  Quattrocentisteria 

oration,  but  her  near  presence  disconcerted 
him  again  —  and  he  looked  down.  She  was 
strongly  excited  with  her  quick  resolution ; 
her  colour  had  risen  and  her  voice  faltered 
when  she  began  to  speak.  She  spoke  eagerly, 
running  her  words  together. 

"Ecco,  Messer  Sandro,"  she  whispered  blush- 
ing. "  You  have  heard  these  sayings.  .  .  . 
Who  is  there  in  Florence  like  me  ?  " 

"  There  is  no  one,"  said  Sandro  simply. 

"  I  will  be  your  Lady  Venus,"  she  went  on 
breathlessly.  "  You  shall  paint  me,  rising  from 
the  sea-foam.  .  .  .  The  Genoese  love  the 
sea."  She  was  still  eager  and  defiant;  her 
bosom  rose  and  fell  unchecked. 

"  The  Signorina  is  mocking  me  ;  it  is  impos- 
sible ;  the  Signorina  knows  it." 

"Eh,  Madonna!  is  it  so  shameful  to  be 
fair — Star  of  the  Sea  as  your  poets  sing  at 
evening  ?  Do  you  mean  that  I  dare  not  do 
it  ?  Listen  then,  Signor  Pittore ;  to-morrow 
morning  at  mass-time  you  will  come  to  the 
Villa  Vespucci  with  your  brushes  and  pans 
and  you  will  ask  for  Monna  Simonetta.  Then 
you  will  see.  Leave  it  now ;  it  is  settled." 
And  she  walked  away  with  her  head  high  and 


£>uattrocentisteria  115 

the  same  superb  smile  on  her  red  lips.  Mock- 
ery !  She  was  in  dead  earnest ;  all  her  child's 
feelings  were  in  hot  revolt.  These  women 
who  had  whispered  to  each  other,  sniggered 
at  her  dress,  her  white  neck  and  her  free 
carriage ;  Giuliano  who  had  presumed  so 
upon  her  candour  —  these  prying,  censorious 
Florentines  —  she  would  strike  them  dumb 
with  her  amazing  loveliness.  They  sang  her 
a  goddess  that  she  might  be  flattered  and 
suffer  their  company  :  she  would  show  herself 
a  goddess  indeed  —  the  star  of  her  shining 
Genoa,  where  men  were  brave  and  silent  and 
maidens  frank  like  the  sea.  Yes,  and  then 
she  would  withdraw  herself  suddenly  and 
leave  them  forlorn  arid  dismayed. 

As  for  Sandro,  he  stood  where  she  had  left 
him,  peering  after  her  with  a  mist  in  his  eyes. 
He  seemed  to  be  looking  over  the  hill-side, 
over  the  city  glowing  afar  off  gold  and  purple 
in  the  hot  air,  to  Mont'  Oliveto  and  the  heights, 
where  a  line  of  black  cypresses  stood  about  a 
low  white  building.  At  one  angle  of  the  build- 
ing was  a  little  turret  with  a  belvedere  of  round 
arches.  The  tallest  cypress  just  topped  the 
windows.  There  his  eyes  seemed  to  rest. 


n6  ^uatlrocentisteria 


ii 


At  mass-time  Sandro,  folded  in  his  shabby 
green  cloak,  stepped  into  the  sun  on  the  Ponte 
Vecchio.  The  morning  mists  were  rolling 
back  under  the  heat ;  you  began  to  see  the 
yellow  line  of  houses  stretching  along  the  tur- 
bid river  on  the  far  side,  and  frowning  down 
upon  it  with  blank,  mud-stained  faces.  Above, 
through  steaming  air,  the  sky  showed  faintly 
blue  and  a  campanile  to  the  right  loomed  pale 
and  uncertain  like  a  ghost.  The  sound  of 
innumerable  bells  floated  over  the  still  city. 
Hardly  a  soul  was  abroad ;  here  and  there  a 
couple  of  dusty  peasants  were  trudging  in  with 
baskets  of  eggs  and  jars  of  milk  and  oil ;  a 
boat  passed  down  to  the  fishing,  and  the  oar 
knocked  sleepily  in  the  rowlock  as  she  cleared 
the  bridge.  And  above,  on  the  heights  of  Mont' 
Oliveto,  the  tapering  forms  of  cypresses  were 
faintly  outlined  —  straight  bars  of  shadow  — 
and  the  level  ridge  of  a  roof  ran  lightly  back 
into  the  soft  shroud. 

Sandro  could  mark  these  things  as  he  stepped 
resolutely  on  to  the  bridge,  crossed  it,  and  went 
up  a  narrow  street  among  the  sleeping  houses. 


£>uattrocentisteria  117 

The  day  held  golden  promise ;  it  was  the  day 
of  his  life  !  Meantime  the  mist  clung  to  him 
and  nipped  him ;  what  had  fate  in  store  ? 
What  was  to  be  the  issue  ?  In  the  Piazza 
Santo  Spirito,  grey  and  hollow-sounding  in 
the  chilly  silences,  his  own  footsteps  echoed 
solemnly  as  he  passed  by  the  door  of  the  great 
ragged  church.  Through  the  heavy  darkness 
within  lights  flickered  faintly  and  went ;  serv- 
ice was  not  begun.  A  drab  crew  of  cripples 
lounged  on  the  steps  yawning  and  shivering, 
and  two  country  girls  were  strolling  to  the 
mass  with  brown  arms  round  each  other's 
waists.  When  Sandro's  footfall  clattered  on 
the  stones  they  stopped  by  the  door  looking 
after  him  and  laughed  to  see  his  dull  face  and 
muffled  figure.  In  the  street  beyond  he  heard 
a  bell  jingling,  hasty,  incessant ;  and  soon  a 
white-robed  procession  swept  by  him,  flutter- 
ing vestments,  tapers,  and  the  Host  under  a 
canopy,  silk  and  gold.  Sandro  snatched  at 
his  cap  and  dropped  on  his  knees  in  the  road, 
crouching  low  and  muttering  under  his  breath 
as  the  vision  went  past.  He  remained  kneel- 
ing for  a  moment  after  it  had  gone,  then 
crossed  himself  —  forehead,  breast,  lip  —  and 


T  1 8  £>uattrocentisteria 

hurried  forward.  ...  He  stepped  under 
the  archway  into  the  Court.  There  was  a 
youth  with  a  cropped  head  and  swarthy  neck 
lounging  there  teazing  a  spaniel.  As  the  steps 
sounded  on  the  flags  he  looked  up ;  the  old 
green  cloak  and  clumsy  shoes  of  the  visitor 
did  not  interest  him  ;  he  turned  his  back  and 
went  on  with  his  game.  Sandro  accosted 
him  —  Was  the  Signorina  at  the  house  ?  The 
boy  went  on  with  his  game.  "  Eh,  Diavolo  ! 
I  know  nothing  at  all,"  he  said. 

Sandro  raised  his  voice  till  it  rang  round 
the  courtyard.  "  You  will  go  at  once  and 
inquire.  You  will  say  to  the  Signorina  that 
Sandro  di  Mariano  Filipepi  the  Florentine 
painter  is  here  by  her  orders ;  that  he  waits 
her  pleasure  below." 

The  boy  had  got  up ;  he  and  Sandro  eyed 
each  other  for  a  little  space.  Sandro  was  the 
taller  and  had  the  glance  of  a  hawk.  So  the 
porter  went.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  Presently  with  throbbing  brows  he 
stood  on  the  threshold  of  Simonetta's  chamber. 
It  was  the  turret  room  of  the  villa  and  its  four 
arched  windows  looked  through  a  leafy  tracery 
over  towards  Florence.  Sandro  could  see 


Quattrocentisteria  119 

down  below  him  in  the  haze  the  glitter  of  the 
Arno  and  the  dusky  dome  of  Brunelleschi 
cleave  the  sward  of  the  hills  like  a  great 
burnished  bowl.  In  the  room  itself  there  was 
tapestry,  the  Clemency  of  Scipio,  with  court- 
iers in  golden  cuirasses  and  tall  plumes,  and 
peacocks  and  huge  Flemish  horses  —  a  rich 
profusion  of  crimson  and  blue  drapery  and 
stout  limbed  soldiery.  On  a  bracket,  above  a 
green  silk  curtain,  was  a  silver  statuette  of 
Madonna  and  the  Bambino  Gesu,  with  a  red 
lamp  flickering  feebly  before.  By  the  windows 
a  low  divan  heaped  with  velvet  cushions  and 
skins.  But  for  a  coffer  and  a  prayer  desk  and 
a  curtained  recess  which  enshrined  Simon- 
etta's  bed,  the  room  looked  wind-swept  and 
bare. 

When  he  entered  Simonetta  was  standing 
by  the  window  leaning  her  hand  against  the 
ledge  for  support.  She  was  draped  from  top 
to  toe  in  a  rose-coloured  mantle  which  shrouded 
her  head  like  a  nun's  wimple  and  then  fell  in 
heavy  folds  to  the  ground.  She  flushed  as  he 
came  in,  but  saluted  him  with  a  grave  inclina- 
tion. Neither  spoke.  The  silent  greeting, 
the  full  consciousness  in  each  of  their  parts, 


1 20  £>uattrocentisteria 

gave  a  curious  religious  solemnity  to  the  scene 
—  like  some  familiar  but  stately  Church  mys- 
tery. Sandro  busied  himself  mechanically 
with  his  preparations  —  he  was  a  lover  and 
his  pulse  chaotic,  but  he  had  come  to  paint  — 
and  when  these  were  done,  on  tip-toe,  as  it 
were,  he  looked  timidly  about  him  round  the 
room,  seeking  where  to  pose  her.  Then  he 
motioned  her  with  the  same  reverential,  pre- 
occupied air,  silent  still,  to  a  place  under  the 
silver  Madonna.  .  .  . 

*  <%;%.»  .  There  was  a  momentary  quiver  of 
withdrawal.  Simonetta  blushed  vividly  and 
drooped  her  eyes  down  to  her  little  bare  foot 
peeping  out  below  the  lines  of  the  rosy  cloak. 
The  cloak's  warmth  shone  on  her  smooth  skin 
and  rayed  over  her  cheeks.  In  her  flowery 
loveliness  she  looked  diaphanous,  ethereal ; 
and  yet  you  could  see  what  a  child  she  was,  with 
her  bright  audacity,  her  ardour  and  her  wil- 
fulness  flushing  and  paling  about  her  like  the 
dawn.  There  she  stood  trembling  on  the 
brink.  .  .  . 

Suddenly  all  her  waywardness  shot  into  her 
eyes;  she  lifted  her  arms  and  the  cloak  fell 
back  like  the  shard  of  a  young  flower;  then, 


^uattrocentisteria  121 

delicate  and  palpitating  as  a  silver  reed,  she 
stood  up  in  the  soft  light  of  the  morning,  and 
the  sun,  slanting  in  between  the  golden  leaves 
and  tendrils,  kissed  her  neck  and  shrinking 
shoulder. 

Sandro  stood  facing  her,  moody  and  troubled, 
fingering  his  brushes  and  bits  of  charcoal ; 
his  shaggy  brows  were  knit,  he  seemed  to  be 
breathing  hard.  He  collected  himself  with  an 
effort  and  looked  up  at  her  as  she  stood  before 
him  shrinking,  awe-struck,  panting  at  the 
thing  she  had  done.  Their  eyes  met,  and  the 
girl's  distress  increased ;  she  raised  her  hand 
to  cover  her  bosom  ;  her  breath  came  in  short 
gasps  from  parted  lips,  but  her  wide  eyes  still 
looked  fixedly  into  his,  with  such  blank  panic 
that  a  sudden  movement  might  really  have 
killed  her.  He  saw  it  all ;  she !  there  at  his 
mercy.  Tears  swam  and  he  trembled.  Ah ! 
the  gracious  lady  !  what  divine  condescension  ! 
what  ineffable  courtesy  !  But  the  artist  in  him 
was  awakened  almost  at  the  same  moment; 
his  looks  wandered  in  spite  of  her  piteous 
candour  and  his  own  nothingness.  Sandro 
the  poet  would  have  fallen  on  his  face  with  an 
"  Exi  a  me,  nam  peccator  sum."  Sandro  the 


122  Quattrocentisteria 

painter  was  different  —  no  mercy  there.  He 
made  a  snatch  at  a  carbon  and  raised  his 
other  hand  with  a  kind  of  command  —  u  Holy 
Virgin  !  what  a  line !  Stay  as  you  are,  I 
implore  you :  swerve  not  one  hair's  breadth 
and  I  have  you  for  ever !  "  There  was  con- 
quest in  his  voice. 

So  Simonetta  stood  very  still,  hiding  her 
bosom  with  her  hand,  but  never  took  her 
watch  off  the  enemy.  As  he  ran  blindly 
about  doing  a  hundred  urgent  indispensable 
things, —  noting  the  lights,  the  line  she  made, 
how  her  arm  cut  across  the  folds  of  the  cur- 
tain —  she  dogged  him  with  staring,  fascinated 
eyes,  just  as  a  hare,  crouching  in  her  form, 
watches  a  terrier  hunting  round  her  and  waits 
for  the  end. 

But  the  enemy  was  disarmed.  Sandro  the 
passionate,  the  lover,  the  brooding  devotee, 
was  gone ;  so  was  la  bella  Simonetta  the 
beloved,  the  be-hymned.  Instead,  here  was 
a  fretful  painter,  dashing  lines  and  broad 
smudges  of  shade  on  his  paper,  while  before 
him  rose  an  exquisite,  slender,  swaying  form, 
glistening  carnation  and  silver,  and,  over  all, 
the  maddening  glow  of  red-gold  hair.  Could 


^uattrocentisteria  1 23 

he  but  catch  those  velvet  shadows,  those 
delicate,  glossy,  reflected-lights !  Body  of 
Bacchus  !  How  could  he  put  them  in  !  What 
a  picture  she  was  !  Look  at  the  sun  on  her 
shoulder !  and  her  hair  —  Christ !  how  it 
burned  !  It  was  a  curious  moment.  The  girl 
who  had  never  understood  or  cared  to  under- 
stand this  humble  lover,  guessed  now  that  he 
was  lost  in  the  artist.  She  felt  that  she  was 
simply  an  effect  and  she  resented  it  as  a 
crowning  insult.  Her  colour  rose  again,  her 
red  lips  gathered  into  a  pout.  If  Sandro  had 
but  known,  she  was  his  at  that  instant.  He 
had  but  to  drop  the  painter,  throw  down  his 
brushes,  set  his  heart  and  hot  eyes  bare  — 
to  open  his  arms  and  she  would  have  fled 
into  them  and  nestled  there ;  so  fierce  was 
her  instinct  just  then  to  be  loved,  she,  who 
had  always  been  loved  !  But  Sandro  knew 
nothing  and  cared  nothing.  He  was  absorbed 
in  the  gracious  lines  of  her  body,  the  lithe 
long  neck,  the  drooping  shoulder,  the  tender- 
ness of  her  youth  ;  and  then  the  grand  open 
curve  of  the  hip  and  thigh  on  which  she  was 
poised.  He  drew  them  in  with  a  free  hand  in 
great  sweeping  lines,  eagerly,  almost  angrily; 


1 24  £>uattrocentisteria 

once  or  twice   he  broke    his   carbon   and  — 
body  of  a  dog  !  —  he  snatched  at  another. 

This  lasted  a  few  minutes  only :  even  Simo- 
netta,  with  all  her  maiden  tremors  still  fever- 
ishly acute,  hardly  noticed  the  flight  of  time ; 
she  was  so  hot  with  the  feeling  of  her  wrongs, 
the  slight  upon  her  victorious  fairness.  Did 
she  not  know  how  fair  she  was  ?  She  was  get- 
ting very  angry ;  she  had  been  made  a  fool  of. 
All  Florence  would  come  and  gape  at  the  pic- 
ture and  mock  her  in  the  streets  with  bad 
names  and  coarse  gestures  as  she  rode  by. 
She  looked  at  Sandro.  Santa  Maria !  how 
hot  he  was  !  His  hair  was  drooping  over  his 
eyes  !  He  tossed  it  back  every  second  !  And 
his  mouth  was  open,  one  could  see  his  tongue 
working!  Why  had  she  not  noticed  that 
great  mouth  before  ?  '  T  was  the  biggest  in 
all  Florence.  O  !  why  had  he  come  ?  She 
was  frightened,  remorseful,  a  child  again, 
with  a  trembling  pathetic  mouth  and  shrink- 
ing limbs.  And  then  her  heart  began  to  beat 
under  her  slim  fingers.  She  pressed  them 
down  into  her  flesh  to  stay  those  great  mas- 
terful throbs.  A  tear  gathered  in  her  eye ; 
larger  and  larger  it  grew,  and  then  fell.  A 


£>uattrocentisteria  125 

shining  drop  rested  on  the  round  of  her 
cheek  and  rolled  slowly  down  her  chin  to  her 
protecting  hand,  and  lay  there  half  hidden, 
shining  like  a  rain-drop  between  two  curving 
petals  of  a  rose. 

It  was  just  at  that  moment  the  painter 
looked  up  from  his  work  and  shook  his  bush 
of  hair  back.  Something  in  his  sketch  had 
displeased  him ;  he  looked  up  frowning,  with 
a  brush  between  his  teeth.  When  he  saw  the 
tear-stained,  distressful,  beautiful  face  it  had  a 
strange  effect  upon  him.  He  dropped  nerve- 
less, like  a  wounded  man,  to  his  knees, 
and  covered  his  eyes  with  his  hands.  "Ah 
Madonna  !  for  the  pity  of  heaven  forgive  me  ! 
forgive  me !  I  have  sinned,  I  have  done  thee 
fearful  wrong ;  I,  who  still  dare  to  love  thee." 
He  uncovered  his  face  and  looked  up  radiant : 
his  own  words  had  inspired  him.  "  Yes/'  he 
went  on,  with  a  steadfast  smile,  "  I,  Sandro, 
the  painter,  the  poor  devil  of  a  painter,  have 
seen  thee  and  I  dare  to  love !  "  His  triumph 
was  short-lived.  Simonetta  had  grown  deadly 
white,  her  eyes  burned,  she  had  forgotten  her- 
self. She  was  tall  and  slender  as  a  lily,  and 
she  rose,  shaking,  to  her  height. 


1 26  ^uattrocentisteria 

"  Thou  presumest  strangely/'  she  said,  in  a 
slow  still  voice,  "  Go  !  Go  in  peace  !  " 

She  was  conqueror.  In  her  calm  scorn,  she 
was  like  a  young  immortal,  some  cold  victori- 
ous Cynthia  whose  chastity  had  been  flouted. 
Sandro  was  pale  too :  he  said  nothing  and  did 
not  look  at  her  again.  She  stood  quivering 
with  excitement,  watching  him  with  the  same 
intent  alertness  as  he  rolled  up  his  paper 
and  crammed  his  brushes  and  pencils  into 
the  breast  of  his  jacket.  She  watched  him 
still  as  he  backed  out  of  the  room  and  disap- 
peared through  the  curtains  of  the  archway. 
She  listened  to  his  footsteps  along  the  corri- 
dor, down  the  stair.  She  was  alone  in  the 
silence  of  the  sunny  room.  Her  first  thought 
was  for  her  cloak ;  she  snatched  it  up  and 
veiled  herself  shivering  as  she  looked  fear- 
fully round  the  walls.  And  then  she  flung 
herself  on  the  piled  cushions  before  the  win- 
dow and  sobbed  piteously,  like  an  abandoned 
child. 

The  sun  slanted  in  between  the  golden 
leaves  and  tendrils  and  played  in  the  tangle 
of  her  hair.  .  .  . 


Quattrocentistcria  127 

in 

At  ten  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  April  the 
twenty-sixth,  a  great  bell  began  to  toll :  two 
beats  heavy  and  slow,  and  then  silence,  while 
the  air  echoed  the  reverberation,  moaning. 
Sandro,  in  shirt  and  breeches,  with  bare  feet 
spread  broad,  was  at  work  in  his  garret  on  the 
old  bridge.  He  stayed  his  hand  as  the  strong 
tone  struck,  bent  his  head  and  said  a  prayer : 
"  Miserere  ei,  Domine  ;  requiem  eternam  dona, 
Domine ;  "  the  words  came  out  of  due  order 
as  if  he  was  very  conscious  of  their  import. 
Then  he  went  on.  And  the  great  bell  went 
on ;  two  beats  together,  and  then  silence.  It 
seemed  to  gather  solemnity  and  a  heavier 
message  as  he  painted.  Through  the  open 
window  a  keen  draught  of  air  blew  in  with 
dust  and  a  scrap  of  shaving  from  the  Lung' 
Arno  down  below ;  it  circled  round  his  work- 
shop, fluttering  the  sketches  and  rags  pinned  to 
the  walls.  He  looked  out  on  a  bleak  landscape 
—  San  Miniato  in  heavy  shade,  and  the  white 
houses  by  the  river  staring  like  dead  faces. 
A  strong  breeze  was  abroad ;  it  whipped  the 
brown  water  and  raised  little  curling  billows, 


1 28  £>uattrocentisteria 

ragged  and  white  at  the  edges,  and  tossed 
,  about  snaps  of  surf.  It  was  cold.  Sandro 
shivered  as  he  shut  to  his  casement ;  and  the 
stiffening  gale  rattled  at  it  fitfully.  Once  again 
it  thrust  it  open,  bringing  wild  work  among 
the  litter  in  the  room.  He  made  fast  with  the 
rain  driving  in  his  face.  And  above  the  howl- 
ing of  the  squall  he  heard  the  sound  of  the 
great  bell,  steady  and  unmoved  as  if  too  full 
of  its  message  to  be  put  aside.  Yet  it  was 
coming  to  him  athwart  the  wind. 

Sandro  stood  at  his  casement  and  looked  at 
the  weather  —  beating  rain  and  yeasty  water. 
He  counted,  rather  nervously,  the  pulses 
between  each  pair  of  the  bell's  deep  tones. 
He  was  impressionable  to  circumstances,  and 
the  coincidence  of  storm  and  passing-bell  awed 
him.  .  .  .  "  Either  the  God  of  Nature  suffers 
or  the  fabric  of  the  world  is  breaking ;  "  —  he 
remembered  a  scrap  of  talk  wafted  towards 
him  (as  he  stood  in  attendance)  from  some 
humanist  at  Lorenzo's  table  only  yesterday, 
above  the  light  laughter  and  snatches  of  song. 
That  breakfast  party  at  the  Camaldoli  yester- 
day !  What  a  contrast  —  the  even  spring 
weather  with  the  sun  in  a  cloudless  sky,  and 


£>uattrocentisteria  1.29 

now  this  icy  dead  morning  with  its  battle  of 
wind  and  bell,  fighting,  he  thought,  —  over  the 
failing  breath  of  some  strong  man.  Man ! 
God,  more  like.  "  The  God  of  Nature  suffers," 
he  murmured  as  he  turned  to  his  work.  .  .  . 

Simonetta  had  not  been  there  yesterday. 
He  had  not  seen  her,  indeed,  since  that  name- 
less day  when  she  had  first  transported  him 
with  the  radiance  of  her  bare  beauty  and 
then  struck  him  down  with  a  level  gaze  from 
steel-cold  eyes.  And  he  had  deserved  it,  he 
had  —  she  had  said  —  "presumed  strangely." 
Three  more  words  only  had  she  uttered  and 
he  had  slunk  out  from  her  presence  like  a  dog. 
What  a  Goddess !  Venus  Urania !  So  she, 
too,  might  have  ravished  a  worshipper  as  he 
prayed,  and,  after,  slain  him  for  a  careless 
word.  Cruel  ?  No,  but  a  Goddess.  Beauty 
had  no  laws ;  she  was  above  them.  Agnolo 
himself  had  said  it,  from  Plato.  *  .  .  Holy 
Michael!  What  a  blast!  Black  and  desper- 
ate weather.  ..."  Either  the  God  of  Nature 
suffers."  .  .  .  God  shield  all  Christian  souls 
on  such  a  day !  .  .  . 

One  came  and  told  him  Simonetta  Vespucci 
was  dead.  Some  fever  had  torn  at  her  and 


1 3°  ^uattrocentisteria 

raced  through  all  her  limbs,  licking  up  her  life 
as  it  passed.  No  one  had  known  of  it  —  it 
was  so  swift !  But  there  had  just  been  time 
to  fetch  a  priest ;  Fra  Matteo,  they  said,  from 
the  Carmine,  had  shrived  her  ('t  was  a  bootless 
task,  God  knew,  for  the  child  had  babbled  so, 
her  wits  wandered,  look  you),  and  then  he  had 
performed  the  last  office.  One  had  fled  to 
tell  the  Medici.  Giuliano  was  wild  with  grief ; 
\  was  as  if  he  had  killed  her  instead  of  the 
Spring-ague  —  but  then,  people  said  he  loved 
her  well !  And  our  Lorenzo  had  bid  them 
swing  the  great  bell  of  the  Duomo — Sandro 
had  heard  it  perhaps  ?  —  and  there  was  to  be 
a  public  procession,  and  a  Requiem  sung  at 
Santa  Croce  before  they  took  her  back  to 
Genoa  to  lie  with  her  fathers.  Eh  !  Bacchus  ! 
She  was  fair  and  Giuliano  had  loved  her  well. 
'T  was  natural  enough  then.  So  the  gossip 
ran  out  to  tell  his  news  to  more  attentive 
ears,  and  Sandro  stood  in  his  place,  intoning 
softly  "  Te  Deum  Laudamus." 

He  understood  it  all.  There  had  been  a 
dark  and  awful  strife  —  earth  shuddering  as 
the  black  shadow  of  death  swept  by.  Through 
tears  now  the  sun  beamed  broad  over  the 


Quattrocentisteria  131 

gentle  city  where  she  lay  lapped  in  her  mossy 
hills.  "  Lux  eterna  lucet  ei,"  he  said  with  a 
steady  smile ;  "  atque  lucebit,"  he  added  after 
a  pause.  He  had  been  painting  that  day  an 
agonizing  Christ,  red  and  languid,  crowned 
with  thorns.  Some  of  his  own  torment  seems  to 
have  entered  it,  for,  looking  at  it  now,  we  see, 
first  of  all,  wild  eyeballs  staring  with  the  mad 
earnestness,  the  purposeless  intensity  of  one 
seized  or  "  possessed/'  He  put  the  panel 
away  and  looked  about  for  something  else, 
the  sketch  he  had  made  of  Simonetta  on  that 
last  day.  When  he  had  found  it,  he  rolled  it 
straight  and  set  it  on  his  easel.  It  was  not 
the  first  charcoal  study  he  had  made  from  life, 
but  a  brush  drawing  on  dark  paper,  done  in 
sepia-wash  and  the  lights  in  white  lead.  He 
stood  looking  into  it  with  his  hands  clasped. 
About  half  a  braccia  high,  faint  and  shadowy 
in  the  pale  tint  he  had  used,  he  saw  her  there 
victim  rather  than  Goddess.  Standing  timidly 
and  wistfully,  shrinking  rather,  veiling  herself, 
maiden-like,  with  her  hands  and  hair,  with  lips 
trembling  and  dewy  eyes,  she  seemed  to  him 
now  an  immortal  who  must  needs  suffer  for 
some  great  end ;  live  and  suffer  and  die ;  live 


1 3  2  ^iiattrocentisteria 

again,  and  suffer  and  die.  It  was  a  doom 
perpetual  like  Demeter's,  to  bear,  to  nurture, 
to  lose  and  to  find  her  Persephone.  She  had 
stood  there  immaculate  and  apprehensive,  a 
wistful  victim.  Three  days  before  he  had 
seen  her  thus ;  and  now  she  was  dead.  He 
would  see  her  no  more. 

Ah  !     Yes,  once  more  he  would  see  her.  .  .  . 

They  carried  dead  Simonetta  through  the 
streets  of  Florence  with  her  pale  face  uncov- 
ered and  a  crown  of  myrtle  in  her  hair. 
People  thronging  there  held  their  breath,  or 
wept  to  see  such  still  loveliness  ;  and  her  poor 
parted  lips  wore  a  patient  little  smile,  and  her 
eyelids  were  pale  violet  and  lay  heavy  to  her 
cheek.  White,  like  a  bride,  with  a  nosegay  of 
orange-blossom  and  syringa  at  her  throat,  she 
lay  there  on  her  bed  with  lightly  folded 
hands  and  the  strange  aloofness  and  preoccu- 
pation all  the  dead  have.  Only  her  hair 
burned  about  her  like  a  molten  copper ;  and 
the  wreath  of  myrtle  leaves  ran  forward  to  her 
brows  and  leapt  beyond  them  into  a  tongue. 

The  great  procession  swept  forward  ;  black 
brothers  of  Misericordia,  shrouded  and  awful, 


£>uattrocentisteria  133 

bore  the  bed  or  stalked  before  it  with  torches 
that  guttered  and  flared  sootily  in  the  dancing 
light  of  day.  They  held  the  pick  of  Florence, 
those  scowling  shrouds  —  Giuliano  and  Loren- 
zo, Pazzi,  Tornabuoni,  Soderini  or  Pulci ;  and 
behind,  old  Cattaneo,  battered  with  storms, 
walked  heavily,  swinging  his  long  arms  and 
looking  into  the  day's  face  as  if  he  would  try 
another  fall  with  Death  yet.  Priests  and  aco- 
lytes, tapers,  banners,  vestments  and  a  great 
silver  Crucifix,  they  drifted  by,  chanting  the 
dirge  for  Simonetta  ;  and  she,  as  if  for  a  sac- 
rifice, lifted  up  on  her  silken  bed,  lay  couched 
like  a  white  flower  edged  colour  of  flame.  .  .  . 
.  .  »  Santa  Croce,  the  great  church,  stretched 
forward  beyond  her  into  distances  of  grey 
mist  and  cold  spaces  of  light.  Its  bare  vast- 
ness  was  damp  like  a  vault.  And  she  lay  in 
the  midst  listless,  heavy-lidded,  apart,  with  the 
half-smile,  as  it  seemed,  of  some  secret  mirth. 
Round  her  the  great  candles  smoked  and 
flickered,  and  mass  was  sung  at  the  High 
Altar  for  her  soul's  repose.  Sandro  stood 
alone  facing  the  shining  altar  but  looking 
fixedly  at  Simonetta  on  her  couch.  He  was 
white  and  dry  —  parched  lips  and  eyes  that 


1 34  ^uattrocentisteria 

ached  and  smarted.  Was  this  the  end  ?  Was 
it  possible,  my  God !  that  the  transparent, 
unearthly  thing  lying  there  so  prone  and  pale 
was  dead  ?  Had  such  loveliness  aught  to  do 
with  life  or  death  ?  Ah !  sweet  lady,  dear 
heart,  how  tired  she  was,  how  deadly  tired ! 
From  where  he  stood  he  could  see  with  intol- 
erable anguish  the  sombre  rings  round  her  eyes 
and  the  violet  shadows  on  the  lids,  her  folded 
hands  and  the  straight,  meek  line  to  her 
feet.  And  her  poor  wan  face  with  its  wistful, 
pitiful  little  smile  was  turned  half  aside  on  the 
delicate  throat,  as  if  in  a  last  appeal:  — 
"  Leave  me  now,  O  Florentines,  to  my  rest. 
I  have  given  you  all  I  had  :  ask  no  more.  I 
was  a  young  girl,  a  child ;  too  young  for  your 
eager  strivings.  You  have  killed  me  with 
your  play ;  let  me  be  now,  let  me  sleep ! " 
Poor  child  !  Poor  child  !  Sandro  was  on  his 
knees  with  his  face  pressed  against  the  pulpit 
and  tears  running  through  his  fingers  as  he 
prayed.  .  .  . 

As  he  had  seen  her,  so  he  painted.  As  at 
the  beginning  of  life  in  a  cold  world,  passively 
meeting  the  long  trouble  of  it,  he  painted  her 
a  rapt  Presence  floating  evenly  to  our  earth. 


£>uattrocentisteria  135 

A  grey,  translucent  sea  laps  silently  upon  a 
little  creek  and,  in  the  hush  of  a  still  dawn, 
the  myrtles  and  sedges  on  the  water's  brim 
are  quiet.  It  is  a  dream  in  half  tones  that  he 
gives  us,  grey  and  green  and  steely  blue ;  and 
just  that,  and  some  homely  magic  of  his  own, 
hint  the  commerce  of  another  world  with 
man's  discarded  domain.  Men  and  women 
are  asleep,  and  as  in  an  early  walk  you  may 
startle  the  hares  at  their  play,  or  see  the 
creatures  of  the  darkness  —  owls  and  night 
hawks  and  heavy  moths  —  flit  with  fantastic 
purpose  over  the  familiar  scene,  so  here  it 
comes  upon  you  suddenly  that  you  have  sur- 
prised Nature's  self  at  her  mysteries ;  you  are 
let  into  the  secret ;  you  have  caught  the  spirit 
of  the  April  woodland  as  she  glides  over  the 
pasture  to  the  copse.  And  that,  indeed,  was 
Sandro's  fortune.  He  caught  her  in  just  such 
a  propitious  hour.  He  saw  the  sweet  wild 
thing,  pure  and  undefiled  by  touch  of  earth  ; 
caught  her  in  that  pregnant  pause  of  time  ere 
she  had  lighted.  Another  moment  and  a 
buxom  nymph  of  the  grove  would  fold  her  in 
a  rosy  mantle,  coloured  as  the  earliest  wood- 
anemones  are.  She  would  vanish,  we  know, 


136  Quatlrocentisteria 

into  the  daffodils  or  a  bank  of  violets.  And 
you  might  tell  her  presence  there,  or  in  the 
rustle  of  the  myrtles,  or  coo  of  doves  mating 
in  the  pines ;  you  might  feel  her  genius  in  the 
scent  of  the  earth  or  the  kiss  of  the  West 
wind ;  but  you  could  only  see  her  in  mid- 
April,  and  you  should  look  for  her  over  the 
sea.  She  always  comes  with  the  first  warmth 
of  the  year. 

But  daily,  before  he  painted,  Sandro  knelt 
in  a  dark  chapel  in  Santa  Croce,  while  a  blue- 
chinned  priest  said  mass  for  the  repose  of 
Simonetta's  soul. 


VIII 
THE  BURDEN  OF  NEW  TYRE 

|OR  a  short  time  in  her  motley  his- 
.  tory,  an  old-clothesman,  one  Domen- 
ico  —  he  and  his  "Compagnia  del 
Bruco,"  his  Company  of  the  Grub — reigned 
over  Siena  and  gave  to  her  people  a  taste  for 
blood.  It  was  bloodshed  on  easy  terms  they 
had  ;  for  surely  no  small  nation  (except  that 
tiger-cat  Perugia)  has  achieved  so  much  mas- 
sacre and  so  little  fighting.  Massacre  con- 
sidered as  one  of  the  Fine  Arts  ?  No  indeed ; 
but  massacre  as  a  viaticum,  as  "  title  clear  to 
mansions  in  the  skies";  for,  with  more  com- 
placency than  discrimination,  these  sated 
citizens  chose  to  dedicate  their  most  fantastic 
blood-orgies  by  a  Missa  de  Spiritu  Sancto  in 
the  Cathedral  Church.  The  old-clothesman, 
who  by  some  strange  oversight  died  in  his  bed, 
was  floated  up  on  the  incense  of  this  devout 
service  to  show  his  hands,  and  —  marvel !  — 
Saint  Catherine,  the  "  amorosa  sposa"  of 


138       The  Burden  of  New  Tyre 

Heaven,  reigned  in  his  stead.  Certainly,  for 
unction  spiced  with  ferocity,  for  a  madness 
which  alternately  kissed  the  Crucifix  and 
trampled  on  it,  for  mandragora  and  fleurs  de 
fys,  saints  and  succubi,  churches  and  lazar- 
dens  —  commend  me  to  Siena  the  red. 

You  are  not  to  suppose  that  she  has  not 
paid  for  all  this,  the  red  Siena.  None  of  it  is 
absolved ;  it  is  there  floating  vaguely  in  the 
atmosphere.  It  chokes  the  gully-trap  streets 
in  August  when  the  air  is  like  a  hot  bath ;  it 
wails  round  the  corners  on  stormy  nights  and 
you  hear  it  battling  among  the  towers  over- 
head, buffetting  the  stained  walls  of  criminal 
old  palaces  and  churches  grown  hoary  in 
iniquity  —  so  many  half-embodied  centuries  of 
deadly  sin  gnawing  their  spleens  or  shrieking 
their  infamous  carouse  over  again.  So  at 
least  I  found  it.  Without  baring  myself  to 
the  charge  of  any  sneaking  kindness  for  blood- 
shedding,  I  may  own  to  the  fascination  of  the 
precipitous  fortress-town  huddled  red  and  grey 
on  its  three  red  crags,  and  of  its  suggestion  of 
all  the  old  crimes  of  Italy  from  Ezzelino's  to 
Borgia's.  Its  air  seemed  "  blood-boltered " 
(like  the  shade  of  the  hunted  Banquho),  its 


The  Burden  of  New  Tyre       139 

stones,  curiously  slippery  for  such  dry  weather, 
cried  "  Haro !  "  or  "Out!  Havoc 1"  And 
above  it  all  shone  a  marble  church,  white  as  a 
bride,  while  now  and  again  on  a  favourable 
waft  of  wind  came  the  fragrant  memory  of 
Saint  Catherine.  It  is  the  peak  of  earth 
most  charged  with  wayward  emotions  —  pity 
and  terror  blent  together  into  a  poignant 
beauty,  a  sorcery.  Imagine  yourself  one  of 
those  old  Popes  —  Linus  or  Anaclete  or 
Damasius  —  whose  heads  spike  the  clerestory 
of  the  Duomo,  you  would  look  down  upon  a 
sea  of  pictures  (by  the  best  pavement-artists 
in  the  world)  —  the  Massacre  of  the  Innocents 
like  a  patch  of  dry  blood  by  the  altar-steps,  a 
winking  Madonna  in  the  Capella  del  Voto 
thronged  with  worshippers,  Hermes  Trisme- 
gistus,  a  freaksome  wizard,  by  the  West  door, 
and  a  gilded  array  of  the  grand  monde  smiling 
and  debonnair  in  the  sacristy.  Not  far  off  is 
Sodoma's  lovely  Catherine  fainting  under  the 
sweet  dolour  of  her  spousals.  Are  you  for  the 
White  or  the  Black  Mass?  Cybele  or  the 
Holy  Ghost  ?  Catherine  or  Hermes  Trisme- 
gistus  ?  Siena  will  give  you  any  and  yet  more 
cunning  confections.  It  is  very  strange. 


140       The  Burden  of  New  Tyre 

The  approach  to  her  three  hills,  if  you  are 
not  flattened  by  the  intolerable  pilgrimage 
from  Florence,  is  fine.  Hints  of  what  is  to 
come  greet  you  in  the  frittered  shale  of  the 
grey  country-side  broken  abruptly  by  little 
threatening  hill-towns.  The  scar  juts  out  of 
the  earth's  crust,  rising  sheer,  and  there  on  a 
fretted  peak  hovers  a  fortress-village,  steep 
red  roofs,  an  ancient  bell-tower  or  two  with  a 
lean  barrel  of  a  church  beyond ;  all  the  lines 
cut  sharp  to  the  clean  sky  ;  a  bullock  cart  creak- 
ing up  homewards  ;  the  shiver  and  dust  of  olives 
round  the  walls.  You  could  swear  you  caught 
the  glint  of  a  long  gun  over  the  machicolations  ; 
but  it  is  only  a  casement  fired  by  the  wester- 
ing sun.  Such  are  San  Miniato,  Castel  Flor- 
entine, Poggibonsi  (where  stayed  Lorenzo's 
Nencia  —  his  Nancy,  we  should  call  her),  San 
Gimignano  and  its  Fina,  a  little  girl-saint  of 
fifteen  springs ;  such,  too,  is  Siena  when  you 
get  there,  but  redder,  her  grey  stones  blushing 
for  her  sins.  And  the  country  blushes  for  her 
as  you  draw  near,  for  all  the  vineyards  are 
dotted  with  burning  willows  in  the  autumn  — 
osier-bushes  flaming  at  the  heart.  Let  it  be 
night  when  you  arrive  —  the  dead  vast  and 


The  Burden  of  New  Tyre       141 

middle  of  a  still  night.  Then  suffer  yourself 
to  be  whirled  through  the  inky  streets,  over 
the  flags,  from  one  hill  to  another.  It  is 
deathly  quiet ;  no  soul  stirs.  The  palaces 
rise  on  either  hand  like  the  ghosts  of  old 
reproaches ;  a  flickering  lamp  reveals  a  gully 
as  black  as  a  grave,  and  shines  on  the  edge  of 
a  lane  which  falls  you  know  not  whither. 
You  turn  corners  which  should  complicate  a 
maze,  you  scrape  and  clatter  down  steeps,  you 
groan  up  mountain-sides.  All  in  the  dark, 
mind.  And  the  great  white  houses  slide  down 
upon  you  to  the  very  flags  you  are  beating; 
you  could  near  touch  either  wall  with  a  hand. 
So  you  swerve  round  a  column,  under  a  votive 
lamp,  and  have  left  the  stars  and  their  violet 
bed.  You  are  in  a  cortile :  men  say  there  is 
an  inn  here  with  reasonable  entertainment. 
If  it  is  the  Aquila  Nera  it  will  serve.  There 
is  no  sound  beyond  the  labouring  of  our 
horses'  wind  and  of  some  outland  dog  in  the 
far  distance  baying  for  a  moon.  This  is  Siena 
at  her  black  magic. 

I  maintain  that  the  impression  you  thus 
receive  holds  you.  Next  morning  there  is  a 
blare  of  sun.  It  will  blind  you  at  first,  blister 


142       The  Burden  of  New  7yre 

you.  Rayed  out  from  plaster-walls  which  have 
been  soaking  in  it  for  five  centuries,  driven 
up  in  palpable  waves  of  heat  from  the  flags, 
lying  like  a  lake  of  white  metal  in  the  Piazza, 
however  recklessly  this  truly  royal  sun  may 
beam,  in  Siena  you  will  feel  furtive  and  astare 
for  sudden  death. 

There  is  nothing  frank  and  open  about 
Siena ;  none  of  your  robust,  red-lunged,  open- 
air  Paganism.  Theophile  Gautier,  Baudelaire, 
Poe  —  such  supersensitive  plants  should  have 
known  it,  instead  of  the  ingenuous  M.  Bourget 
and  the  ingenious  Mr.  Henry  James.  M. 
Bourget  looked  at  the  Sodomas  and  Mr.  James 
admired  the  view :  what  a  romance  we  should 
have  had  from  Gautier  of  illicit  joys  and  their 
requital  by  a  knife,  what  a  strophe  from  Bau- 
delaire half  obscene,  half-mournful,  wholly 
melodious.  But  The'ophile  Gautier  tarried  in 
Venice,  and,  as  for  M.  Charles,  the  man  of 
pronounced  tastes  and  keen  nose,  stuck  in 
the  main  to  Paris.  Failing  them  as  guides, 
go  you  first  to  the  Piazza  del  Campo  where 
horses  race  in  August  —  all  roads  lead  thither. 
Contraries  again  !  A  square  ?  It  is  a  cup. 
A  field?  It  is  a  Gabbatha :  a  place  of 


The  Burden  of  New  Tyre       143 

burning  pavements.  Were  red  brick  and 
Gothic  ever  so  superbly  compounded  before, 
to  be  so  strong  and  yet  so  lithe  ?  That  is  the 
Palazzo  Publico,  the  shrine  of  Aristotle's 
Politics  and  the  Miracles  of  the  Virgin.  What 
is  that  long  spear  which  seems  to  shake  as 
it  glances  skywards  ?  It  is  n't  a  spear  ;  it 's 
the  Torre  del  Mangia  —  the  loveliest  tower 
in  Tuscany,  the  filia  pulchrior  of  a  beautiful 
mother,  the  Torre  della  Vacca  of  Florence. 
That  tower  rises  from  the  bottom  of  the  cup 
and  shoots  straight  upwards,  nor  stays  till  it 
has  out-topped  the  proudest  belfry  on  the 
hills  about  it.  But  what  a  square  this  is! 
The  backs  of  the  houses  (whose  front  doors 
are  high  above  on  the  hill-top)  stand  like 
bald  cliffs  on  every  side.  You  cannot  see 
any  outlets :  most  of  them  are  winding  stair- 
ways cut  between  the  houses.  The  lounging, 
shabby  men  and  girls  seem  handsomer  and 
lazier  than  you  found  them  in  Florence.  They 
seem  to  have  room  to  stretch  their  fine  limbs 
against  these  naked  walls.  Their  maturity  is 
almost  tropical.  The  girls  wear  flopping  straw 
hats :  wide,  sorrowful  eyes  stare  at  you  from 
the  shady  recesses,  and  the  rounding  of  their 


144       The  Burden  of  New  Tyre 

chins  and  beautiful  proud  necks  are  marked 
by  glossy  lights.  "  Morbida  e  bianca,"  sang 
Lorenzo.  I  suppose  they  think  of  little  more 
than  the  market  price  of  spring  onions :  but 
then,  why  do  their  eyes  speak  like  that  ?  And 
what  do  they  speak  of?  Dio  mio,  I  am  an 
honest  man  !  But  so  was  Lorenzo ;  listen  to 
him  :  — 

"  Two  eyes  hath  she  so  roguish  and  demure 
That,  lit  they  on  a  rock,  they  'd  make  it  feel ; 
How  shall  poor  melting  man  meet  such  a  lure  ? " 

How  indeed  ?     Ah,  Nenciozza  mia  ! 

"  My  little  Nancy  shows  nor  fleck  nor  pimple  ; 
Pliant  and  firm  is  she,  a  reed  for  grace  : 
In  her  smooth  chin  there's  just  one  pretty  dimple 
That  rounds  the  perfect  measure  of  her  face  :  " 

That  dimple  has  been  the   destruction  of 
many  a  British  heart :  — 

"So  wise,  withal,  above  us  other  simple 
Plain  folk  —  sure,  Nature  set  her  in  this  place 
To  bloom  her  tender  whiteness  all  about  us, 
And  break  our  hearts  —  and  then  bloom  on  without 
us." 


The  Burden  of  New  Tyre       145 

Yes  indeed,  my  Lorenzo.  But  enough ! 
Let  us  take  shelter  in  the  Duomo. 

Barred  like  a  tiger,  glistening  snow  and  rose 
and  gold,  topped  by  a  flaunting  angel,  her 
door  flanked  by  the  lean  Roman  wolf,  paved 
with  pictures,  hemmed  with  the  Popes  from 
Peter  to  Pius,  encrusted  with  marbles  and 
gemmy  frescos,  it  is  a  casket  of  delights 
this  church,  and  the  quintessence  of  Siena  — 
molles  Sence  as  Beccadelli,  himself  a  Tyrian, 
dubbed  his  native  town.  Voluptuous  as  she 
was,  tigerish  Siena  was  more  consistent  than 
you  would  think.  True,  Saints  Catherine  and 
Bernardine  consort  oddly  with  the  old-clothes- 
man saying  mass  with  wet  hands,  and  Becca- 
delli  the  soft  singer  of  abominations,  just  as 
the  "  Madones  aux  longs  regards"  of  the 
Primitives  —  pious  creatures  of  slim  idle  fin- 
gers and  desirous  eyes,  pining  in  brocade  and 
jewels  —  seem  in  a  different  sphere  from  Pin- 
turricchio's  well-found  Popes  and  Princesses, 
and  Sodoma's  languishing  boys  or  half-ripe 
Catherines  dying  of  love.  Have  I  not  said 
this  was  once  a  city  of  pleasure  ?  And  whether 
the  pleasure  was  a  blood-feast  or  an  Agape,  or 
a  Platonic  banquet  where  the  flute-players  and 


146       The  Burden  of  New  Tyre 

wine-cups  and  crowns  crushed  out  the  high 
disquisition  and  philosophic  undercurrent  — 
it  was  one  to  soft  Siena  drowsing  on  her  hills. 
Her  pleasures  were  fierce,  and  beautiful  as 
fierce.  But  the  burden  of  Tyre  is  always  the 
same.  And  so  the  memories  of  a  thousand 
ancient  wrongs  unpurged  howl  over  the  red 
city,  as  once  howled  the  ships  of  Tarshish. 


IX 
ILARIA,  MARIOTA,  BETTINA 

(STUDIES  IN  TRANSLATION  FROM  STONE) 

GREATEST  of  great  ladies  is  Ilaria, 
\>potens  Lucca,  sleeping  easily,  with 
[  chin  firmly  rounded  to  the  vault, 
where  she  has  slept  for  five  hundred  years : 
and  still  a  power  in  Lucca  of  the  silver  planes. 
It  was  a  white-hot  September  day  I  went  to 
pay  my  devotions  to  her  shrine.  Lucca 
drowsed  in  a  haze,  her  bleached  arcades  of 
trees  lifeless  in  the  glare  of  high  noon :  all 
the  valley  was  winking,  the  very  bells  had 
no  strength  to  chime :  and  then  I  saw  Ilaria 
lie  in  the  deep  shade  waiting  for  the  judg- 
ment. Ilaria  was  a  tall  Tuscan  —  the  girls 
of  Lucca  are  out  of  the  common  tall,  and 
straight  as  larches  —  of  fine  birth  and  a  life 
of  minstrels  and  gardens.  Pompous  proces- 
sions, trapped  horses,  emblazonings,  were 


148        liar ia.  Mar 'iota ,  Bettina 

hers,  and  all  refinements  of  High  Masses  and 
Cardinals.  So  she  lived  once  a  life  as  stately- 
ordered  as  old  dance-music,  in  the  airy  corri- 
dors of  a  great  marble  palace  swept  hourly 
by  the  thin,  clean  air  of  the  Lucchesan 
plain  ;  and  her  lord  went  out  to  war  with  Pisa 
or  Pescia,  or  even  further  afield,  following 
Emperor  or  Pope  to  that  Monteaperti  which 
made  Arbia  run  colour  of  wine,  or  shrill 
Benevento,  or  Altopascio  which  cost  the  Flor- 
entines so  dear.1  But  Ilaria  stayed  at  home  to 
trifle  with  lap-dogs  and  jongleurs  under  the 
orange  trees;  heard  boys  make  stammering 
love,  and  laughed  lightly  at  their  Decameron 
travesty,  being  too  proud  to  be  ashamed  or 
angered ;  and  sometimes  (for  she  was  not  too 
proud  but  that  love  should  be  of  the  party), 
she  pulled  a  ring  from  one  lithe  finger,  and 
looked  down  while  the  lad  kissed  it  for  a  holy 
relic  and  put  it  in  his  bosom  reverently, — 
pretending  not  to  see.  But,  Ilaria,  you  knew 
well  what  gave  colour  to  the  faint  and  worn 
old  words  about  Fior  di  spin  giallo^  or  O  Dea 
fatale,  or 

1  Historically  he  could  have  done  none   of  these 
things,  except,  perhaps,  fight  at  Altopascio. 


Ilaria^  Mariota,  Bettina        149 

"  O  Dio  de'  Dei ! 
La  piu  bellina  mi  parete  voi ; 
O  quanto  sete  cara  agli  occhi  miei ! " 

And  so  the  days  passed  in  your  square  cor- 
ner palace,  until  the  plague  came  down  with 
the  North  wind,  and  you  bowed  your  proud 
neck  before  it  like  a  mountain  pine.  Young 
to  die,  young  to  die  and  leave  the  pleasant 
ways  of  Lucca,  the  green  ramparts,  the  grassy 
walks  in  the  pastures  where  the  hawks  fly  and 
the  shadows  fleet  over  the  green  and  gold  of 
early  May.  Young  enough,  Ilaria.  Scorner 
of  love,  now  Death  is  at  hand,  with  the  bats' 
wings  and  wet  scythe  they  give  him  in  the 
Piazza,  when  your  lord  comes  triumphing  or 
God's  Body  takes  the  air:  what  of  him, 
Madonna  ?  Let  him  come,  says  Ilaria,  with 
raised  eyebrows  and  a  wintry  smile.  Yet  she 
fought :  her  thin  hands  held  off  the  scythe  at 
arms'  length  ;  she  set  her  teeth  and  battled 
with  the  winged  beast.  Whenas  she  knew  it 
must  be,  suddenly  she  relaxed  her  hold,  and 
Death  had  his  way  with  her.  fc  < 

Then  her  women  came  about  her  and  robed 
her  in  a  long  robe,  colour  of  olive  leaves,  and 
soft  to  the  touch.  And  they  covered  soberly 


150        liar  id)  Mar  iota,  Bettina 

her  feet  and  placed  them  on  a  crouching  dog, 
which  was  Lucca.  But  her  fine  hands  they 
folded  peace-wise  below  her  bosom,  to  rest 
quietly  there  like  the  clasps  of  a  girdle.  Her 
gentle  hair  (bright  brown  it  was,  like  a  year- 
ling chestnut)  they  crowned  also,  and  closed 
down  her  ringed  eyes.  So  they  let  her  lie  till 
judgment  come.  And  when  I  saw  her  the 
close  robe  still  folded  her  about  and  ran  up 
her  throat  lovingly  to  her  chin,  till  her  head 
seemed  to  thrust  from  it  as  a  flower  from  its 
calyx.  It  would  seem,  too,  as  if  her  bosom 
rose  and  fell,  that  her  nostrils  quivered  when 
the  wind  blew  in  and  touched  them ;  and  the 
hem  of  her  garment  being  near  me,  I  was  fain 
to  kiss  it  and  say  a  prayer  to  the  divinity 
haunting  that  place.  So  I  left  the  presence 
well  disposed  in  my  heart  to  glorify  God  for 
so  fair  a  sight. 

Whereafter  I  took  the  way  to  Florence 
among  the  vineyards  and  tangled  hill-sides ; 
and,  anon,  in  the  broad  plain  I  stayed  at 
Prato  to  honour  the  lady  of  the  town. 
Madonna  della  Cintola  she  is  called  now,  and 
one  Luca,  a  worker  in  clay,  knew  her  mind 
most  intimately  and  did  all  her  will.  Quiet 


a,)  Mariota^  Bettina        151 

days  she  had  lived  at  Prato,  being  wife  to  a 
decent  metal-worker  there  and  keeper  of  his 
house  and  stuff.  Mariota  she  was  then  called 
for  all  her  name,  but  as  to  her  parentage  none 
knew  it,  save  that  Marco's  Joanna  had  been 
both  frail  and  fair,  and  when  she  had  been  in 
flower  the  great  Lord  Ottoboni  had  flowered 
likewise  —  and  often  in  her  company.  Joanna 
I  had  never  known ;  she  died  before  her  lord 
married  the  lady  Adelidis  of  Verona  and  the 
seven  days'  tilting  were  held  in  her  honour  in 
a  field  below  the  city  wall.  But  when  Luca 
first  knew  Mariota  and  saw  how  her  mother's 
pride  beaconed  from  her  smooth  brow,  the 
girl  was  standing  in  the  Piazza  in  a  tattered 
green  kirtle  and  bodice  that  gaped  at  the 
hooks,  played  upon  by  sun,  and  fallow  wind, 
and  longing  looks  driven  at  her  eyes  in  vain. 
The  wench  carried  her  head  and  light  fardel 
of  years  like  a  Princess  ;  would  laugh  to  show 
her  fine  teeth  if  your  jest  pleased  her ;  and 
then  she  would  look  straightly  upon  you  and 
be  glad  of  you.  If  you  pleased  her  not,  she 
would  look  through  you  to  the  mountains  or 
the  church-tower.  She  had  as  squarely  a 
modelled  chin  as  ever  I  saw,  and  her  lips 


152        Ilaria^  Mar  iota,  Bet  tin  a 

firmly  set  and  redder  than  strawberries  in  a 
wet  May.  None  taught  her  anything ;  none, 
that  Luca  could  learn,  gave  her  sup  or  bed. 
He  was  a  boy  then  and  would  have  given  her 
both.  I  think  she  knew  he  favoured  her  — 
what  girl  does  not?  Everybody  favoured 
Mariota,  stayed  as  she  passed,  and  followed 
her  stealthily  with  troubled  eyes.  But  he  was 
a  moody  boy  then,  at  the  mercy  of  dreams, 
and  stammered  when  he  was  near  her,  blush- 
ing. When  he  came  back  she  was  seventeen 
years  old,  and  the  metal-worker's  wife.  It  was 
then  Luca  saw  her,  in  the  street  called  of  the 
Eye,  where  climbing  plants  top  the  convent 
wall  and  from  the  garden  comes  the  scent  of 
wall-flowers  and  sweet  marjoram. 

At  her  man's  door  she  was  standing,  bare- 
footed, fray-kirtled  as  of  old ;  but  riper,  of 
more  assured  and  triumphant  beauty.  In  her 
arms  a  boy-child,  lusty  and  half-naked,  strug- 
gled to  be  fed,  seeking  with  both  fat  hands  to 
forage  for  himself.  Turning  her  grey  eyes, 
where  pride  slumbered  and  shame  had  never 
been,  she  knew  Luca  again,  made  him  welcome 
at  the  door,  with  superb  assurance  set  wine 
and  olives  and  bread  before  him  ;  and  so  stood 


liar ia ,  Mar iota^  Bettina        153 

at  the  table  while  he  ate,  gravely  recovering 
one  by  one  the  features  of  his  face,  smiling, 
preoccupied  with  her  pleasure  and  unconscious 
of  the  cooing  child.  For  with  matronly  com- 
posure she  had  eased  my  gentleman  as  soon 
as  she  had  provided  for  her  guest. 

In  comes  the  metal-worker,  Sor  Matteo, 
burly  but  benevolent  in  a  greasy  apron,  eyes 
the  lad  up  and  down  with  much  burdensome 
pondering  of  hand  to  scrubby  chin,  as  to  say 
to  Mariota  "  I  'm  no  fool."  With  never  a 
blush,  nor  a  quailing  of  the  eyes'  level  beam, 
Mariota  begs  cousin  Luca  to  become  conscious 
of  her  master. 

There  were  the  makings  of  a  piece  of  right 
Boccacesque  in  all  this,  and  the  padrone 
showed  manifest  disinclination  for  his  accus- 
tomed part :  but  Luca's  candid  face  disclaimed 
all  dark-entry  work.  Mariota  hurried  to  her 
task.  A  modeller  in  clay,  a  statuary,  via,  an 
admirer  of  the  choicer  contrivings  of  Mother 
Nature !  What  and  if  he  should  find  his 
cousin,  his  scarce-remembered  gossip  Mariota, 
worth  an  artist's  half-closed  eye !  And  the 
bambinaccio  (with  a  side-look  and  face  averted 
as  she  spoke)  —  ecco  ! — many  a  Gesulino 


154        liar  id)  Mariota^  Bettina 

showed  a  leaner  thigh  and  cheeks  less  peachy 
than  he.  Had  Papa  seen  the  new  dimple  in 
Beppino's  chin  ?  And  more  soft  piping  to  the 
same  tune.  Master  Matteo  was  appeased ; 
but  Luca  was  far  adrift  with  other  matters. 
Love,  for  him,  lay  not  in  flesh  and  blood 
alone ;  rather,  in  what  flesh  and  blood  signi- 
fied in  another  clay,  not  Messer  Domened- 
dio's,  but  his  own  chosen  task-stuff.  He  had 
come  hither  to  Prato  on  the  commission  of 
the  Opera,  to  work  a  Madonna  col  Bambino 
for  the  great  door  of  the  Duomo.  Well !  he 
had  his  Madonna  to  hand,  it  would  seem  :  — 
Mariota  at  the  door  of  the  smith's  house,  con- 
fident, lissom  and  fresh,  and  the  lusty  child 
groping  for  his  breakfast.  The  light  had  been 
upon  her,  gleamed  upon  her  skin,  her  brim- 
ming eyes,  her  glossy  brown  hair.  What  a 
bravery  was  hers  !  What  a  glorified  present- 
ment of  young  life,  new-budded,  was  here  ! 
The  town  gaped,  the  husband  admired;  but 
Mariota,  with  her  square  chin  and  high  car- 
riage, looked  as  straightly  before  her,  when  in 
pale  blue  and  silver-white,  Madonna  with  the 
Babe  and  the  holy  deacons  Stephen  and  Lau- 
rence stood,  four  months  afterwards,  within  the 


Ilaria,  Mar  iota,  Bettina        155 

shadow  of  the  great  church,  and  shone  out  to 
the  day. 

I  pay  silent  respect  to  strapping  Mariota 
and  her  baby-boy  in  the  country  of  Boccace. 
Then,  when  I  am  in  Florence  again,  under  the 
spell  of  the  city  life,  I  lounge  in  the  Borg' 
Ognissanti,  or  across  Arno  in  the  quartiere 
San  Niccolb,  or  out  by  San  Frediano  where 
Botticelli  in  his  green  old  age  pruned  his 
vines,  or  in  the  pent  streets  between  the  Via 
della  Pergola  and  Santa  Croce,  and  watch  the 
townsfolk  lead  their  lives  of  patchwork  and 
easy  laughter.  I  fear  I  have  a  taste  for  such 
company.  I  am  fond  of  verdure  ;  I  like  trees 
as  well  as  men :  every  oak  for  me  has  its 
hamadryad  informing  it.  I  like  flowers  better 
than  men ;  and  the  most  beautiful  flower  I 
know  is  a  girl.  I  have  a  sweetheart  in  the 
Bargello,  as  you  shall  hear.  I  believe  she  is 
one  of  Donatello's  sowing ;  but  the  critics  are 
divided.  I  cannot  trace  Verocchio's  blunt- 
ened  lineaments  in  her,  nor  Mino's  peaksome- 
ness,  nor  anything  of  Desiderio.  She  's  not 
very  pretty,  but  she  's  like  a  summer  flower, 
say,  a  campanula ;  and  that  is  why  I  love  to 
watch  her  and  talk  to  her  in  this  grandfatherly 


156        liar ia.  Mar 'iota ,  Bettina 

fashion.  Bettina,  I  say  to  her,  are  you,  I 
wonder,  twelve  years  old  yet  ?  You  cannot 
be  much  more  I  think,  for  you  have  let  your 
bodice-strap  slip  off  one  of  your  shoulders  and 
betray  you  to  the  sun.  You  are  but  a  round 
rose-bud  now  and  no  one  thinks  any  harm ; 
but  some  day  the  sun  will  look  at  you  in  an 
odd  way,  and  then,  suddenly,  you  will  be 
ashamed,  and  draw  your  frock  right  up  to 
your  neck. 

And  your  hair  strays  where  it  likes  at  pres- 
ent. I  know  you  have  a  golden  fillet  of  box- 
leaves  round  your  brow :  that  is  because  you 
are  only  a  little  girl  still,  not  more  than  twelve. 
And  you  have  tied  the  ends  up  in  a  sort  of 
knot.  But  you  romp  so  much  and  laugh  so  — 
I  know  you  have  two  bright  rows  of  little 
teeth  —  that  you  can  never  expect  to  keep 
tidy.  Why,  even  now,  while  I  am  scolding 
you,  you  are  itching  to  laugh  and  run  away. 
I  see  a  wavy  lock  trailing  down  your  neck, 
ragazza,  and  those  heavy  tresses  on  your  tem- 
ples, instead  of  being  drawn  meekly  back, 
droop  down  over  your  temples,  and  cover  up 
your  little  ears.  Don't  you  know  that  Floren- 
tine ladies  are  proud  of  their  foreheads,  and 


liar  ia^  Mar  iota,  Bettina        157 

when  they  have  pretty  ears,  always  show 
them  ?  Some  day,  my  dear,  you  will  go  out 
into  the  world ;  and  your  hair  will  be  twisted 
up  into  coils  with  gold  braid  ;  perhaps  you 
will  have  on  it  a  flowery  garland  of  Messer 
Domenico's  making,  and  a  string  of  Venice 
beads  round  your  throat.  And  when  that 
time  comes,  you  won't  let  the  sun  play  with 
your  neck  any  more;  he  won't  know  his  romp 
when  he  sees  her  in  stiff  velvet  of  Genoa  and 
a  high  collar  edged  with  seed-pearls. 

And  you  won't  look  me  in  the  eyes  as  you 
are  doing  now,  saucy  girl,  with  your  chin 
pushed  forward  and  your  mouth  all  in  a 
pucker  —  who 's  to  know  whether  you  are 
going  to  pout  or  giggle  ?  —  and  your  pert  grey 
eyes  wide  open,  as  if  to  say  "  Who  's  this  old 
thickhead  staring  at  me  so  hard?"  No,  Bet- 
tina, you  will  drop  them  instead;  you  will 
blush  all  over  your  neck  and  cheeks,  and  hang 
your  round  head.  You  have  chestnuts  in 
your  two  fists  now  I  know ;  there  's  some  of 
the  flour  sticking  to  the  corners  of  your  mouth, 
little  slut.  But  then  you  will  have  a  fan  per- 
haps, or  a  spyglass,  or  at  least  a  mass-book 
in  the  mornings ;  and  when  I  am  looking  at 


158        liar  id)  Mar  iota^  Bettina 

you,  your  fingers  will  tie  themselves  in  knots 
and  be  very  interesting.  In  two  years'  time, 
Bettina ! 

But  though  I  shan't  love  you  half  as  much 
as  I  do  now,  I  shall  always  come  to  see  you  I 
think ;  and,  as  I  shall  be  a  very  old  man  by 
that  time,  perhaps  you  will  still  sit  on  a  stool 
at  my  knee  and  give  me  a  kiss  now  and  then 
—  oh,  a  mere  bird's  peck,  just  for  kindness. 
.  .  .  The  Via  de'  Bardi  is  grey,  and  you  are 
there  in  yellow.  You  are  like  a  young  daffodil 
dancing  in  the  winter  grass.  But  soon  you 
will  have  strained  to  your  full  flower-time,  and 
I  see  you  in  your  summering,  lithe  and  rather 
languid,  with  heavy-lidded  eyes,  and  a  slow 
smile.  Then  you  will  not  dance  ;  but,  instead, 
you  will  stoop  gravely  like  a  tall  garden  lily, 
and  give  your  white  hand  to  the  lover  kneeling 
below. 

And  all  in  two  years,  my  little  Bettina ! 


SERVUS  SERVORUM 

Scene  —  A  room  in  a  Florentine  Palace 

LORENZO  DE'  MEDICI,  BERNARDO,  a  Genoese 

Lor.     Sforza    down ;    Genoa    free,    the    field 

open.     Well,  well!     Are  you  very  sure 

of  this  ? 
Ber.     I  am  so  sure  that  my  life  is  staked  upon 

the  fact  of  it.     Will  you  stead  Freedom, 

my  lord  ? 

Lor.     Freedom  ?    Well,  Genoa  's  a  broad  city. 
Ber.     The    sea   is  broad  enough.     Genoa  is 

knit  up  with  sea  and  the  smell  of  ships. 

In  such  amplitude  there  should  be  room 

found  to  swing  a  sceptre. 
Lor.     What  is  it  you  ask  ? 
Ber.     Simonetta. 
Lor.     How  now  ?    Simonetta  ?   The  girl  is  free 

as  Genoa. 


160  Servus  Servorum 

Ber.  Both  are  beset  with  ambushes  :  Venice 
hankers  after  one  ;  Giuliano,  your  brother, 
waits  till  the  maid  falls  to  him.  I  ask  you 
clear  the  pass.  This  is  not  a  great  thing; 
for  me  it  may  be  much.  The  Lombard  is 
off,  and  I  care  not  greatly  who  may  be 
next  yoke-master  —  \aside\  for  a  season. 
In  touching  my  country  you  touch  not 
me,  for  you  cannot  efface  her  glory  any 
more  than  you  can  sublimate  her  shaggy 
rocks.  But  you  lay  hands  on  holiness 
where  you  set  up  to  serve  my  lady :  there 
you  wound :  there  you  may  be  wounded. 
I  do  not  wait  that  you  should  go  along 
with  me  in  this.  I  reason  not,  nor  claim. 
But  I  have  my  price  like  any  market-stuff. 
Leave  it  so.  Are  you  toward  ?  [Aside] 
The  usurous  thief  haggles  within  himself. 
Proper  work  for  a  free  man  !  But  I  drop 
him  yet. 

Lor.  \Aside\  Simonetta  for  thee,  Genoa  for 
me ;  the  hat  for  Giuliano ;  tiara,  Rome, 
Italy !  Florence  the  heart  and  Medici 
the  blood  of  a  sumptuous  body-politic. — 
O  rare  !  Sforza  down  —  ah,  there  now  ! 
What  a  tumble !  Necks  are  soon  broke 


Servus  Servorum  161 

that  climb  .  .  .  see  now,  see  now,  can  I 
fix  it  ?  ...  thus  —  and  thus  —  Can  I  not 
adjust,  smooth,  strike?  Well!  [Aloud} 
We  must  speak  further,  sir,  I  must  see 
my  way.  Meantime  no  word. 

Ber.  I  am  close,  my  lord.  But,  look  you,  I 
am  well  friended  in  Genoa.  Genoa  is  mine 
when  I  have  strength  to  it.  Strength,  and 
the  comfortable  assurance  of  a  friend  of 
peace.  There  's  Naples  now. 

Lor.  How  ?  Naples  ?  Ferrante  is  my  foe  : 
guard  yourself  with  Naples.  Go,  sir ;  I 
must  needs  think.  Guard  yourself  with 
Naples.  'T  is  a  rank  stock,  and  wormed. 

Ber.     I  leave  you,  my  lord.  \Exit. 

Lor.  Your  Genoese  is  a  dull  dog;  and  a 
proud  dog,  for  pride  is  the  panoply  of  a 
thick  wit.  Give  him  a  snuffed  apple,  and 
he  '11  waste  the  world  to  wipe  the  affront 
from  his  platter.  Thus  your  heavy- 
armoured  spirit  looks  at  honour,  that  it 
lies  in  what  you  would  be  thought  rather 
than  in  that  which  you  are.  Giuliano 
should  leave  snuffing  the  peachy  maid. 
Does  Florence,  do  all  Tuscany  and  the 
marches  thereof,  grow  no  ripe  fruit? 


1 62  Servus  Servorum 

What  is  she,  won,  but  a  snack  o'  the 
feast  and  edge  to  the  tarnished  blade  of 
his  palate  ?  Take  her  away,  give  her 
unsnuffed  to  my  grudging  Genoese  — 
nay,  nay,  Giuliano  Proud-Flesh  would  be 
fretted  to  a  fever.  You  poison  the  plum 

—  and  then  what  good  is  it  ?     But  a  poi- 
soned plum  !     Quick  and  dextrous  trader 

—  the  great  leveller  of  ranks  and  estates. 
Quick  as  the  plague  we  endure  in   our 
midst,  and  as  amenable  to  your  handling 
withal.     Kiss  a  dead  man's  hand,  kiss 
his    Cordetto,  the  flower  that  may  have 
lain  on  his  breast  and  watch'd  the  dying 
of  him  —  Dio  buono  !  there  's  your  politi- 
cal instrument.     Sudden  as  the  fire  .  .  . 
Genoa  and  Naples  !    Saints  forbid.    Flor- 
ence and  Genoa  —  lo  you  !   Pisa  humbled 
further ;  Lucca  laid  lower  ;  Florence  spear- 
ing cloud-high.     And  Medici  her  kingly 
line  —  her  dynasty!  .  .  .  A  line  of  kings. 
A  sceptred  line  of  kings.     I  must  think 
of  this.     I  must  think  of  this.  .  .  .  Yes. 
It  shall  be  that  one  falleth  and  another 
climbeth  ...  to  a  throne.     O  Dante,  that 
was  a  dream  of  thine  !   Ho  !  without  there  I 


Servus  Servorum  163 

Enter  a  Servant. 

Send  me  Brigida.  [Exit  Servant. 

What  a  thing  is  a  ruler,  that  must  play 
Providence  in  two  keys  !  There  must  be 
no  hitch  in  this.  Your  Providence  works 
in  the  rough ;  yet,  mainly,  for  kings  and 
the  longer  arm.  Though  my  shoulder  be 
withered  by  my  dam's  mischance,  my  arm 
sways  free  to  the  motions  of  a  green  head. 

Enter  Brigida. 

Ha,  Brigida.     What 's  o'clock  ? 

Brig.  The  great  candles  are  half  spent,  my 
lord.  There 's  meat  in  them  till  the 
masses  be  sung  and  the  grave  fed. 

Lor.     Hast  kept  the  watch,  Brigida  ? 

Brig.  My  lady  and  I  have  held  it  with  the 
Brothers  of  Saint  Mark.  The  sweet  lamb 
lies  still  enough,  woe  's  the  hour. 

Lor.  And  thy  lady,  Brigida,  thy  lady?  No 
rest  ? 

Brig.  Even  now  she  is  gone  to  snatch  an 
hour.  She 's  fagged,  my  lord ;  fagged 
and  white  ;  and  as  dry  as  ash.  'T  is  hard 
grief  that  may  not  be  wetted. 


164  Servus  Servorum 

Lor.  Rest  is  well,  Brigida  ;  it  is  wisely  done. 
See  now,  Brigida,  I  pine  for  my  little 
child.  I  could  weep,  look  you,  but  that 
I  must  work.  Go  you  now,  Brigida,  fetch 
me  the  Christ  she  yet  wears.  Unclasp 
the  chain  and  bring  it  me.  Go  you. 

Brig.  Your  dead  maid  bore  it  when  life  was 
green,  my  lord.  She  had  it  when  the  pest 
got  her  down  :  even  now  she  has  it  in  her 
sleep  !  'T  is  a  tainted  toy,  my  lord.  What 
would  you  with  such  a  thing  ? 

Lor.  Brigida,  Brigida,  thy  tongue  was  ever 
thine  enemy  !  Must  I  remind  thee,  Brig- 
ida, of  this  ?  Fetch  this  toy,  fetch  it  me. 
I  must  needs  see  it  here. 

Brig.     It  is  enough.  [Goes. 

Lor.  What  shall  a  nurse-girl  know  of  Provi- 
dence and  kingly  counsels  ?  Alas,  a  king 
must  work  in  the  rough  for  the  good  of 
his  people  —  the  good  of  his  people ! 
And,  perchance,  soil  his  fingers.  What 
else  do  our  cousin  of  Naples,  our  cousin 
of  France,  and  all  the  dogs  of  the  kingly 
pack,  but  trip  the  hart  that  their  master 
may  dine?  And  this  master  of  theirs  — 
what  saith  Plato  ?  —  is  —  is  the  State. 


Servus  Servorum  165 

The  State  must  feed,  and  kings  scorch 
their  bowels  with  lime,  lest  the  State  go 
hungry.  The  maid  should  die  therefore 
—  that  the  State  want  not  for  white  meat. 

Re-enters  Brigida^  with  a   Crucifix  on  a 
chain. 

Gingerly  held,  my  Brigida ;  't  is  well 
done.  Let  me  weep  at  the  sight  of  it. 
Alack,  't  was  hers  indeed,  my  little  one's ! 
Let  it  lie  on  the  table,  Brigida.  So,  so. 
Resume  thy  watch.  Pray ;  lest  the  Evil 
One  come  feast  on  thy  tired  lamb.  Thou 
art  a  faithful  soul,  Brigida,  an  honest  soul ! 
I  must  reward  thee  for  many  things.  Take 
this  my  ring.  'T  is  most  choice  work  of 
Rhodes,  wherein  you  may  see  the  pas- 
sion of  Hercules  in  the  shirt,  down  to  the 
very  licking  of  the  luxurious  flame.  'T  is 
nothing  to  thee ;  to  me  it  may  be  much, 
hereafter.  Scala  will  give  thee  a  hundred 
florins  for  the  ring.  Thou  shalt  purchase 
thereout  a  mass  for  me ;  for  me  and  all 
Christian  souls  —  the  souls  of  all  kings 
and  all  servants  of  States.  Get  thee  gone, 
good  Brigida ;  go  pray. 


1 66  Servus  Servorum 

Brig.  [GoingJ\  My  lord  is  distracted.  High 
policy  doth  drive  him  mad.  A  good  mas- 
ter, free  and  open-handed.  Yet  I  never 
saw  him  so  before.  [Goes. 

Lor.  From  one  child  to  another.  Where  's 
the  harm  o'  that  ?  She  is  almost  a  child, 
still  in  the  bud  and  tendril  time.  Poor 
little  chick !  frosted  ere  thy  wings  could 
feather.  She  is  winged  by  this,  mayhap 
—  and  eyed.  How  now  !  If  she  could 
see  me  at  the  work  ?  Foh  !  a  jest,  a  leap 
i'  the  dark  of  the  schools,  a  sop  to  stay 
our  green-sickness.  Lie  thou  there,  taint. 
I  touch  thee  not.  'T  is  most  admirable 
work !  I  had  it  of  a  Bolognese.  A  royal 
gift!  The  Pope,  they  say,  gives  a  dish 
of  figs.  But  Providence,  who  sends  a 
pestilence  and  famine,  works  for  kings. 
Plague 's  abroad ;  strikes  secretly  and 
swift.  Kiss  the  Cross  ! 


XI 
CATS 

fHERE  was  once  a  man  in  Italy  — 
so  the  story  runs  —  who  said  that 

*  animals  were  sacred  because  God  had 
made  them.  People  didn't  believe  him  for  a 
long  time ;  they  came,  you  see,  of  a  race 
which  had  found  it  amusing  to  kill  such 
things,  and  killed  a  great  many  of  them  too, 
until  it  struck  them  one  fine  (Jay  that  killing 
men  was  better  sport  still,  and  watching  men 
kill  each  other  the  best  sport  of  all  because  it 
was  the  least  trouble.  Animals !  said  they, 
why,  how  can  they  be  sacred  ;  things  that  you 
call  beef  and  mutton  when  they  have  left  off 
being  oxen  and  sheep,  and  sell  for  so  much  a 
pound  ?  They  scoffed  at  this  mad  neighbour, 
looked  at  each  other  waggishly  and  shrugged 
their  shoulders  as  he  passed  along  the  street. 
Well!  then,  all  of  a  sudden,  as  you  may  say, 
one  morning  he  walked  into  the  town  —  Gub- 
bio  it  was  —  with  a  wolf  pacing  at  his  heels  — 


1 68  Cats 

a  certain  wolf  which  had  been  the  terror  of 
the  country-side  and  eaten  I  don't  know  how 
many  children  and  goats.  He  walked  up  the 
main  street  till  he  got  to  the  open  Piazza  in 
front  of  the  great  church.  And  the  long  grey 
wolf  padded  beside  him  with  a  limp  tongue 
lolling  out  between  the  ragged  palings  which 
stood  him  for  teeth.  In  the  middle  of  the 
Piazza  was  a  fountain,  and  above  the  fountain 
a  tall  stone  crucifix.  Our  friend  mounted  the 
steps  of  the  cross  in  the  alert  way  he  had  (like 
a  little  bird,  the  story  says)  and  the  wolf,  after 
lapping  apologetically  in  the  basin,  followed 
him  up  three  steps  at  a  time.  Then  with  one 
arm  round  the  shaft  to  steady  himself  he 
made  a  fine  sermon  to  the  neighbours  crowd- 
ing in  the  Square,  and  the  wolf  stood  with  his 
fore-paws  on  the  edge  of  the  fountain  and 
helped  him.  The  sermon  was  all  about  wolves 
(naturally)  and  the  best  way  of  treating  them. 
I  fancy  the  people  came  to  agree  with  it  in 
time  ;  anyhow  when  the  man  died  they  made 
a  saint  of  him  and  built  three  churches,  one 
over  another,  to  contain  his  body.  And  I 
believe  it  is  entirely  his  fault  that  there  are  a 
hundred-and-three  cats  in  the  convent-garden 


Cats  169 

of  San  Lorenzo  in  Florence.  For  what  are 
you  to  do  ?  Animals  are  sacred,  says  Saint 
Francis.  Animals  are  sacred,  but  cats  have 
kittens ;  and  so  it  comes  about  that  the  people 
who  agree  with  Saint  Francis  have  to  suffer 
for  the  people  who  don't. 

The  Canons  of  San  Lorenzo  agree  with 
Saint  Francis,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  they 
must  suffer  a  good  deal.  The  convent  is 
large ;  it  has  a  great  mildewed  cloister  with  a 
covered-in  walk  all  round  it  built  on  arches. 
In  the  middle  is  a  green  garth  with  cypresses 
and  yews  dotted  about;  when  you  look  up 
you  see  the  blue  sky  cut  square,  and  the  hot 
tiles  of  a  huge  dome  staring  up  into  it.  Round 
the  cloister  walk  are  discreet  brown  doors, 
and  by  the  side  of  each  door  a  brass  plate 
tells  you  the  name  and  titles  of  the  Canon  who 
lives  behind  it.  It  is  on  the  principle  of 
Dean's  Yard  at  Westminster ;  only  here  there 
are  more  Canons  —  and  more  cats. 

The  Canons  live  under  the  cloister  ;  the 
cats  live  on  the  green  garth,  and  sometimes 
die  there.  I  did  not  see  much  of  the  Canons  ; 
but  the  cats  seemed  to  me  very  sad  — 
depressed,  nostalgic  even,  might  describe  them, 


170  Cats 

if  there  had  not  been  something  more  languid, 
something  faded  and  spiritless  about  their 
habit.  It  was  not  that  they  quarrelled.  I 
heard  none  of  those  long-drawn  wails,  gloomy 
yet  mellow  soliloquies,  with  which  our  cats 
usher  in  the  crescent  moon  or  hymn  her  when 
she  swims  at  the  full :  there  lacked  even  that 
comely  resignation  we  may  see  on  any  sunny 
window-ledge  at  home  ;  —  the  rounded  back 
and  neatly  ordered  tail,  the  immaculate  fore- 
paws  peering  sedately  below  the  snowy  chest, 
the  squeezed-up  eyes  which  so  resolutely  shut 
off  a  bleak  and  (so  to  say)  unenlightened  world. 
That  is  pensiveness,  sedate  chastened  melan- 
choly ;  but  it  is  soothing ;  it  speaks  a  philoso- 
phy, and  a  certain  balancing  of  pleasures  and 
pains.  In  San  Lorenzo  cloister,  when  I 
looked  in  one  hot  noon  seeking  a  refuge  from 
the  glare  and  white  dust  of  the  city,  I  was 
conscious  of  a  something  sinister  that  forbade 
such  an  even  existence  for  the  smoothest  tem- 
pered cat.  There  were  too  many  of  them  for 
companionship  and  perhaps  too  few  for  the 
humour  of  the  thing  to  strike  them :  in  and 
out  the  chilly  shades  they  stalked  gloomily, 
hither  and  thither  like  lank  and  unquiet  ghosts 


Cats  171 

of  starved  cats.  They  were  of  all  colours  — 
gay  orange-tawny,  tortoiseshell  with  the  becom- 
ing white  patch  over  one  eye,  delicate  tints  of 
grey  and  fawn  and  lavender,  brindle,  glossy 
sable ;  and  yet  the  gloom  and  dampness  of  the 
place  seemed  to  mildew  them  all  so  that  their 
brightness  was  glaring  and  their  softest  grada- 
tions took  on  a  shade  as  of  rusty  mourning. 
No  cat  could  be  expected  to  do  herself 
justice. 

To  and  fro  they  paced,  balancing  some- 
times with  hysterical  precision  on  the  ledge  of 
the  parapet,  passing  each  other  at  whisker's 
length,  but  cutting  each  other  dead !  Not  a  cat 
had  a  look  or  a  sniff  for  his  fellow  ;  not  a  cat 
so  much  as  guessed  at  another's  existence. 
Among  those  hundred-and-three  restless  spirits 
there  was  not  a  cat  but  did  not  affect  to 
believe  that  a  hundred-and-two  were  away ! 
It  was  horrible,  the  inhumanity  of  it.  Here 
were  these  shreds  and  waifs,  these  "  unneces- 
sary litters  "  of  Florentine  households,  herded 
together  in  the  only  asylum  (short  of  the  Arno) 
open  to  them,  driven  in  like  dead  leaves  in 
November,  flitting  dismally  round  and  round 
for  a  span,  and  watching  each  other  die  with- 


172  Cats 

out  a  mew  or  a  lick !     Saint  Francis  was  not 
the  wise  man  I  had  thought  him. 

It  was  about  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon. 
I  had  watched  these  beasts  at  their  feverish 
exercises  for  nearly  an  hour  before  I  per- 
ceived that  they  were  gradually  hemming  me 
in.  They  seemed  to  be  forming  up,  in  ranks, 
on  the  garth.  Only  a  ditch  separated  us  —  I 
was  in  the  cloister-walk,  a  hundred-and-three 
gaunt,  expectant,  desperate  cats  facing  me. 
Their  famished  pale  eyes  pierced  me  through 
and  through  ;  and  two-hundred-and-two  hun- 
gry eyes  (four  cats  supported  life  on  one 
apiece)  is  more  than  I  can  stand,  though  I 
am  a  married  man  with  a  family.  These 
brutes  thought  I  was  going  to  feed  them  !  I 
was  preparing  weakly  for  flight  when  I  heard 
steps  in  the  gateway ;  a  woman  came  in  with 
a  black  bag.  She  must  be  going  to  deposit  a 
cat  on  Jean-Jacques'  ingenious  plan  of  avoid- 
ing domestic  trouble ;  it  was  surely  impossible 
she  wanted  to  borrow  one  !  Neither :  she  came 
confidently  in,  beaming  on  our  mad  fellowship 
with  a  pleasant  smile  of  preparation.  The  cats 
knew  her  better  than  I  did.  Their  suspense 
was  really  shocking  to  witness.  While  she  was 


Cats  173 

rolling  her  sleeves  up  and  tying  on  her  apron 
—  she  was  poor,  evidently,  but  very  neat  and 
wholesome  in  her  black  dress  and  the  decent 
cap  which  crowned  her  grey  hair  —  while  she 
unpacked  the  contents  of  the  bag  —  two  news- 
paper parcels  full  of  rather  distressing  viands, 
scissors,  and  a  pair  of  gloves  which  had  done 
duty  more  than  once  —  while  all  these  prepa- 
rations were  soberly  fulfilling,  the  agitation  of 
the  hundred-and-three  was  desperate  indeed. 
The  air  grew  thick,  it  quivered  with  the  lash- 
ing of  tails ;  hoarse  mews  echoed  along  the 
stone  walls,  paws  were  raised  and  let  fall  with 
the  rhythmical  patter  of  raindrops.  A  furtive 
beast  played  the  thief :  he  was  one  of  the  one- 
eyed  fraternity,  red  with  mange.  Somehow 
he  slipped  in  between  us ;  we  discovered  him 
crouched  by  the  newspaper  raking  over  the 
contents.  This  was  no  time  for  ceremony ;  he 
got  a  prompt  cuff  over  the  head  and  slunk 
away  shivering  and  shaking  his  ears.  And 
then  the  distribution  began.  Now,  your  cat, 
at  the  best  of  times,  is  squeamish  about  his 
food ;  he  stands  no  tricks.  He  is  a  slow  eater, 
though  he  can  secure  his  dinner  with  the  best 
of  us.  A  vicious  snatch,  like  a  snake,  and  he 


174 

has  it.  Then  he  spreads  himself  out  to  dis- 
pose of  the  prey  —  feet  tucked  well  in,  head 
low,  tail  laid  close  along,  eyes  shut  fast.  That 
is  how  a  cat  of  breeding  loves  to  dine.  Alas ! 
many  a  day  of  intolerable  prowling,  many  a 
black  vigil,  had  taken  the  polish  off  the  hun- 
dred-and-three.  As  a  matter  of  fact  they 
behaved  abominably :  they  leaped  at  the 
scraps,  they  clawed  at  them  in  the  air,  they 
bolted  them  whole  with  starting  eyes  and  por- 
tentous gulpings,  they  growled  all  the  while 
with  the  smothered  ferocity  of  thunder  in  the 
hills.  No  waiting  of  turns,  no  licking  of  lips 
and  moustaches  to  get  the  lingering  flavours, 
no  dalliance.  They  were  as  restless  and  sus- 
picious here  as  everywhere ;  their  feast  was 
the  horrid  hasty  orgy  of  ghouls  in  a  church- 
yard. 

But  an  even  distribution  was  made :  I  don't 
think  any  one  got  more  than  his  share. .  Of 
course  there  were  underhand  attempts  in 
plenty  and,  at  least  once,  open  violence  —  a 
sudden  rush  from  opposite  sides,  a  growling 
and  spitting  like  sparks  from  a  smithy ;  and 
then,  with  ears  laid  flat,  two  ill-favoured  beasts 
clawed  blindly  at  each  other,  and  a  sly  and 


Cats  175 

tigerish  briridle  made  away  with  the  morsel. 
My  woman  took  the  thing  very  cooly  I  thought, 
served  them  all  alike,  and  did  n't  resent  (as  I 
should  have  done)  the  unfortunate  want  of 
delicacy  there  was  about  these  vagrants.  A 
cat  that  takes  your  food  and  growls  at  you 
for  the  favour,  a  cat  that  would  eat  you  if  he 
dared,  is  a  pretty  revelation.  Ca  donne  furi- 
eusement  a  penser.  It  gives  you  a  suspicion  of 
just  how  far  the  polish  we  most  of  us  smirk 
over  will  go.  My  cats  at  San  Lorenzo  knew 
some  few  moments  of  peace  between  two  and 
three  in  the  afternoon.  That  would  have  been 
the  time  to  get  up  a  testimonial  to  the  kind 
soul  who  fed  them.  Try  them  at  five  and 
they  would  ignore  you.  But  try  them  next 
morning ! 

My  knowledge  of  the  Italian  tongue,  in 
those  days,  was  severely  limited  to  the  nec- 
essaries of  existence ;  to  try  me  on  a  fancy 
subject,  like  cats,  was  to  strike  me  dumb.  But 
at  this  stage  of  our  intercourse  (hitherto  con- 
fined to  smiles  and  eye-service)  it  became  so 
evident  my  companion  had  something  to  say 
that  I  must  perforce  take  my  hat  off  and  stand 
attentive.  She  pointed  to  the  middle  of  the 


176  Cats 

garth,  and  there,  under  the  boughs  of  a  shrub, 
I  saw  the  hundred-and-fourth  cat,  sorriest  of 
them  all.  It  was  a  new-comer,  she  told  me, 
and  shy.  Shy  it  certainly  was,  poor  wretch ; 
it  glowered  upon  me  from  under  the  branches 
like  a  bad  conscience.  Shyness  could  not  hide 
hunger  —  I  never  saw  hungrier  eyes  than  hers 
—  but  it  could  hold  it  in  check :  the  silkiest 
speech  could  not  tempt  her  out,  and  when  we 
threw  pieces  she  only  winced  !  What  was  to 
be  done  next  was  my  work.  Plain  duty  called 
me  to  scale  the  ditch  with  some  of  those  drip- 
ping, slippery,  nameless  cates  in  my  fingers 
and  to  approach  the  stranger  where  she  lurked 
bodeful  under  her  tree.  My  passage  towards 
her  lay  over  the  rank  vegetation  of  the  garth, 
in  whose  coarse  herbage  here  and  there  I 
stumbled  upon  a  limp  white  form  stretched 
out  —  a  waif  the  less  in  the  world!  I  don't 
say  it  was  a  happy  passage  for  me :  it  was  made 
to  the  visible  consternation  of  her  I  wished  to 
befriend.  Her  piteous  yellow  eyes  searched 
mine  for  sympathy ;  she  wanted  to  tell  me 
something  and  I  would  n't  understand !  As 
I  neared  her  she  shivered  and  mewed  twice. 
Then  she  limped  painfully  off — poor  soul,  she 


Cats  177 

had  but  three  feet !  —  to  another  tree,  leaving 
behind  her,  unwillingly  enough,  a  much-licked 
dead  kitten.  That  was  what  she  wanted  to 
tell  me  then.  As  I  was  there,  I  deposited  the 
garbage  by  the  side  of  the  little  corpse,  know- 
ing she  would  resume  her  watch,  and  retired. 
My  friend  who  had  put  up  her  parcels  was 
prepared  to  go.  She  thanked  me  with  a  smile 
as  she  went  out,  looking  carefully  round  lest 
she  had  missed  out  some  other  night-birds. 

One  of  the  Canons  had  come  out  of  his  door 
and  was  leaning  against  the  lintel,  thoughtfully 
rubbing  his  chin.  He  was  a  spare  dry  man 
who  seemed  to  have  measured  life  and  found 
it  a  childish  business.  He  jerked  his  head 
towards  the  gateway  as  he  glanced  at  me. 
"  That  is  a  good  woman,"  he  said  in  French, 
"she  lendeth  unto  the  Lord.  .  .  .  Yes,"  he 
went  on,  nodding  his  head  slowly  backwards 
and  forwards,  "  lends  Him  something  every 
day."  The  cats  were  sitting  in  the  shady 
cloister-garth  licking  their  whiskers  :  one  was 
actually  cleaning  his  paw.  I  went  out  into  the 
sun  thinking  of  Saint  Francis  and  his  wolf. 


XII 
THE  SOUL  OF  A  CITY 

I  E  hated  Marco  first  of  all  because 
one  day  ,he  undersold  him  in  the 
Campo,  put  him  to  shame  in  open 
market.  Figs  were  going  cheap  that  October 
in  spite  of  the  waning  year ;  but  there  was  no 
earthly  reason  why  he  should  give  the  English 
ladies  more  than  four  for  two  soldi.  What 
were  soldi  to  English  people  ?  The  scratch  of 
a  flea  !  He  would  have  given  them  a  handful, 
taken  as  they  came,  for  their  piece  of  cin- 
quanta,  and  reaped  a  tidy  little  profit  for  him- 
self. Who  would  have  been  the  worse  ?  God 
knew  he  needed  it.  Mariola  crumpled  with 
the  ague  like  a  dried  leaf,  and  that  long  girl 
of  his  growing  up  so  fast,  and  still  running 
wild  with  goat-herds  and  marble  quarrymen. 
How  could  he  send  her  to  the  nuns  for  a 
place  unless  he  bought  her  some  shoes  and  a 
rosary  ?  And  then  that  pig  Marco  —  thieving 


The  Soul  of  a  City  179 

old  miser  —  peered  forward  with  his  mock 
candour  and  silver-rimmed  goggles  and  offered 
ten  for  two  soldi  —  ten  !  with  the  market  price, 
Dio  mio,  at  twelve  1  And  fichi  totati  too ! 
Do  you  wonder  that  the  ladies  in  striped 
blankets  gave  the  cheek  to  Maso  Cecci  and 
turned  to  Marco  Zoppa  ? 

That  was  n't  all,  but  it  was  an  accentuation 
of  a  long  series  of  spiteful  injuries  wrought 
him  by  the  wrinkled  old  villain.  Maso  en- 
dured, hating  the  old  man  daily  more  and 
more ;  tried  little  tricks,  little  revenges,  upon 
him,  upset  his  baskets,  hid  his  pipe ;  but  they 
generally  failed  or  recoiled  with  a  nasty  swift- 
ness upon  himself.  He  only  got  deeper  and 
deeper  into  the  bad  odour  of  the  neighbours 
who  traded  in  the  Piazza  with  fruit  and  indif- 
ferent photographs.  Nothing  went  very  well 
—  thanks  to  that  unspeakable  old  Marco! 
His  girl  grew  longer  and  lazier  and  handsomer, 
with  a  shapelier  bust  and  a  pair  of  arms  like 
that  snaky  Bacchante  in  the  Opera.  Maso 
had  to  quail  more  than  he  liked  to  admit 
before  the  proud  stare  of  her  eyes ;  and  when 
she  dropped  the  heavy  lids  upon  them  and 
sauntered  away,  arms  akimbo  under  her  shawl, 


i8o  The  Soul  of  a  City 

he  could  only  swear.  And  he  always  cursed 
Marco  Zoppa  who  gave  her  chestnuts  and 
sage  counsel  for  nothing.  God  only  knew 
what  devilry  he  might  be  whispering  to  her  in 
the  shady  corner  where  the  sun  never  came 
and  the  grass  sprouted  between  the  flags  — 
she  leaning  against  the  wall,  looking  down  at 
her  toes,  and  he  peering  keen-eyed  into  her 
face  and  muttering  in  his  beard,  sometimes 
laying  an  old  brown  hand  on  her  shoulder  — 
Lord !  he  did  hate  the  man. 

Then  came  the  August  races. 

Maso  had  brought  his  Isotta  into  the  city 
to  see  the  fun  and  she  had  disappeared  in  the 
press  just  before  the  procession  stayed  by  the 
Palazzo  and  the  trumpets  sounded  for  the 
first  race.  Maso  shrugged  his  shoulders  and 
cursed  his  luck,  but  didn't  budge.  The  girl 
must  look  after  herself.  He  was  on  the  upper 
rim  of  the  great  fountain  craning  his  neck  over 
the  pack  of  people :  then  he  got  a  dig  under 
the  ribs  enough  to  take  the  breath  of  an  ox. 
It  was  the  spout  of  old  Marco's  green 
umbrella.  "  Hey  !  silly  fool,"  spluttered  the 
old  liar,  "  dost  want  that  loose-legged  slut  of 
thine  in  trouble  ?  I  tell  thee  she  's  playing 


The  Soul  of  a  City  181 

in  a  corner  with  Carlo  Formaggia.  Already 
he  's  pinched  her  cheek  twice,  and  who  knows 
what  the  end  may  be  ?  Mud-coloured  ass, 
wilt  thou  let  thy  child  slip  to  the  devil  while 
thou  standest  gaping  at  a  horse-race  ? "  And 
this  before  all  the  neighbours  !  What  to  say 
to  such  a  man  ?  Maso  babbled  with  rage  ; 
but  he  had  to  go,  for  Carlo  Formaggia  was 
well  known.  He  had  ruined  more  girls  than 
enough  ;  he  was  in  league  with  vile  houses, 
gambling  dens,  thieves'  hells ;  Captain  of  an 
infamous  secret  society ;  the  police  were  only 
waiting  for  a  pretext  to  get  him  shipped  off  to 
the  hulks.  He  must  go  of  course.  No  thanks 
to  Marco  though :  in  fact  he  hated  him  worse 
than  ever,  partly  because  he  had  drawn  all 
eyes  and  a  fair  share  of  sniggering  and  tongues 
thrust  in  the  cheek  upon  his  account ;  but 
most  because  he  knew  he  had  been  trapped 
into  losing  a  good  place.  For,  as  he  mounted 
the  narrow  stair  cut  between  old  houses  steep 
as  rocks,  he  turned  and  saw  Zoppa  placidly 
smoking  his  pipe  in  the  very  spot  he  had  held, 
squatted  on  the  fountain-rim  with  his  green 
umbrella  between  his  knees.  He  was  beaming 
through  his  spectacles,  in  a  fatherly,  indulgent 


1 82  The  Soul  of  a  City 

sort  of  way,  upon  the  shouting  people  ;  follow- 
ing the  race  too,  like  one  who  had  paid  for  his 
box.  Maso,  when  he  heard  the  shatter  of 
hoofs  and  the  wild  roar  from  thousands  of 
throats  down  below  him  in  the  Campo,  cursed 
old  Zoppa  with  a  grey  face,  and  went  mutter- 
ing round  the  blinding  sides  of  the  Duomo  to 
find  his  daughter.  And  when  he  did  find  her 
she  was  eating  chestnuts  at  the  open  door 
of  her  aunt's  shop  in  the  Via  Ghibellina ! 
Bacchus!  she  was  sick  of  all  those  folk  in 
their  festa  clothes,  was  all  the  explantion  she 
would  give  him  from  between  fine  white  teeth 
all  clogged  with  chestnut-meal.  If  he  chose 
to  dress  his  daughter  like  a  beggar's  brat  he 
had  better  not  take  her  to  the  races.  Maso's 
feeling  of  relief  at  finding  her  alone  and  look- 
ing her  usual  sulky  impassive  self,  gave  way 
very  rapidly  to  a  sort  of  righteous  wrath 
against  his  triumphant  enemy.  So,  by  foul 
slanders  of  honest  God-fearing  people  that  old 
Jew  had  not  scrupled  to  rob  him  of  his  place  ! 
His  place  and  his  day's  fun.  By  Heaven,  he 
was  tricked,  duped  by  a  scaly-eyed  Jew  pedlar, 
a  vile  old  dog  tottering  down  to  Hell  with  lies 
in  his  beard.  Well  1  he  would  put  this  morn- 


The  Soul  of  a  City  183 

ing's  work  down  to  his  score ;  some  day  there 
would  be  a  choice  little  reckoning  for  Ser 
Marco. 

Maso,  green  with  impotent  fury,  poured  out 
his  flood  of  gutturals  upon  his  insouciante  child. 
General  reproaches  were  always  a  failure  in 
cases  of  this  sort.  Some  were  sure  to  be  wild 
guesswork  and  to  drown  the  real  ones :  you 
could  never  tell  when  you  had  hit  the  mark. 
Had  she  not — she  fourteen,  too  !  —  slid  astride 
down  the  railing  into  the  Campo  and  been 
caught  up  in  the  arms  of  Carlo  Formaggia 
waiting  and  laughing  at  the  bottom  ?  Had 
she  not  lain  a  whole  minute  in  his  arms,  pant- 
ing ?  And  then,  Dio  mio,  with  the  sweat  still 
on  her  forehead,  she  had  slipped  off  to  San 
Domenico  and  confessed  to  coughing  at  mass 
the  Sunday  before  !  Pest !  he  would  give  her 
the  strap  over  her  shoulders  when  he  got  her 
home.  The  long,  brown  girl  leaned  against 
the  lintel  kicking  one  heel  idly  against  the 
other.  She  was  smiling  at  him,  smiling  with 
her  lazy,  languid  eyes  and  with  her  glistening 
teeth.  Every  now  and  then  she  inspected 
a  chestnut  critically  —  like  an  amateur !  — 
and  slipped  it  between  her  jaws.  They  split 


184  The  Soul  of  a  City 

it  like  a  banana.  And  then  she  squeezed  the 
half  skins  and  dropped  the  flour  down  her 
throat.  She  had  a  long  sinewy  throat,  glossy 
as  velvet,  with  its  silvery  lights  and  dusky 
brown  shadows.  Maso  stood  helpless  before 
her  as  she  drank  down  her  flour ;  he  chattered 
like  a  little  passionate  ape.  At  last  he  lifted 
up  both  hands  in  a  sudden  frenzy  of  despair 
and  went  away. 

Of  course  the  races  were  over.  The  sober 
streets  swarmed  with  people  in  their  holiday 
clothes.  They  all  seemed  laughing  and  smok- 
ing, and  talking  fluently  of  something  ridicu- 
lous. Maso,  egoist,  knew  it  must  be  about 
him  —  or  his  daughter.  Arms  and  heads  went 
like  mill-sails  or  tall  trees  in  a  gale  of  wind. 
Then,  with  a  rattle  and  the  sudden  sliding  of 
four  hoofs  on  the  flags,  a  cart  would  be  in 
the  thick  of  them,  and  the  people  scoured  to 
the  curb,  still  laughing,  or  spitting  between  the 
spasms  of  the  interrupted  jest.  The  boys  tried 
to  peep  under  the  sagging  hats  of  the  girls,  and 
the  girls  turned  pettish  shoulders  to  them  and, 
as  they  turned,  you  caught  the  glint  of  fun  in 
their  great  roes'  eyes  and  saw  the  lips  part 
before  the  quick  breath.  The  streets  were 


The  Soul  of  a  City  185 

mere  gullies,  clefts  hewn  in  zig-zag  between 
grey  houses  that  tottered  up  and  up,  and  lay 
over  them  like  cliffs.  An  ancient  church 
with  bleached  stone  saints  under  flowery  can- 
opies, a  guttering  candle  before  a  tinsel  shrine, 
and  the  hoarse  babel  of  the  street  —  whips 
that  cracked  and  spluttered  like  squibs,  a 
swarming  coloured  stream  of  men  and  maids, 
once  the  twang  of  a  chance  mandoline.  Siena 
was  feasting,  and  the  waiters  furtively  swept 
their  foreheads  with  their  coatsleeves  as  they 
ran  in  and  out  of  the  trattoric. 

In  the  trattoria  of  the  Aquila  Rossa  old 
Marco  Zoppa  smoked  his  pipe  and  talked, 
between  the  spurts  of  smoke,  to  his  neigh- 
bours. Fate  brought  him  face  to  face  with 
two  enemies  at  once.  Maso  was  battling  his 
way  up  the  street,  white  and  strained  as  a 
grave-cloth ;  and  Carlo  Formaggia,  the  ap- 
proved bravo  —  oiled  and  jaunty,  with  his 
brown  felt  fantastically  rolled  and  stuck  over 
one  ear,  with  a  long  cigar  which  he  alternately 
gnawed  and  sucked,  Carlo  the  broad-chested, 
of  the  seared,  evil  face,  came  down  with  the 
stream  on  the  arms  of  two  other  gilded  youths. 
They  met  before  the  cafe',  the  man  of  intoler- 


i86  The  Soul  of  a  City 

able  wrongs  and  the  Pilia-Borsa  of  Siena. 
Maso  scowled  till  his  thick  eyebrows  cut  his 
face  horizontally  in  two.  He  stood  ostenta- 
tiously still,  muttering  with  his  lips  as  the  trio 
went  lightly  by.  Then  he  made  to  go  on. 
But  old  Marco  Zoppa  stood  up  and  made  a 
speech.  He  had  the  wooden  stem  of  his  pipe 
'twixt  finger  and  thumb,  and  used  it  like  a  con- 
ductor's baton  to  emphasise  his  points.  As 
his  voice  shrilled  and  quavered,  Carlo  For- 
maggia  caught  his  own  name  and  turned  back 
to  listen,  prick-eared.  He  stood  out  of  sight 
resting  one  foot  on  a  doorstep,  and  leaned 
forward  on  to  his  leg.  He  might  have  been 
dreaming  of  some  night  of  love,  but  he  held 
every  word  as  it  dropped. 

"Maso,"  Marco  went  on,  "thou  art  but  a 
thin  fool.  I  know  what  I  know;  but  thou 
must  needs  stick  dirt  in  thine  ears  and  pass 
me  by.  Well,  let  be,  let  be;  the  end  will 
come  soon  enough  —  this  night  even.  And  I 
have  warned  thee." 

"  Spawn  of  a  pig,  wilt  never  have  done  irk- 
ing me  ?  See,  I  scratch  thee  off  me  !  "  Maso 
drove  home  his  gibe  with  a  dramatic  perform- 
ance. The  trattoria  was  agape.  Every  table 


The  Soul  of  a  City  187 

held  its  three  craning  necks  and  six  piercing, 
twinkling  eyes  atop. 

"  I  grow  old,  my  Maso,  I  grow  very  old,  and 
thy  monkey's  tricks  are  nought.  'T  is  thy  slip 
of  a  girl  and  thy  poor  twisted  Mariola  I  would 
save  in  spite  of  thee.  Listen  then  once  more, 
and  for  the  last  time.  Ser  Carlo  intends  to 
snare  thy  pigeon.  He  has  limed  his  twigs ; 
the  bird  flutters  free  for  this  noon,  but  by 
to-night  she  will  be  caged.  For  me,  I  have 
done  my  possible  —  but  I  am  old.  Life  tingles 
fiercer  in  the  blood  of  a  young  man.  There- 
fore beware.  Wilt  thou  see  that  brawny 
assassin  toying  with  thy  girl ;  leaning  over 
her  where  she  crouches,  poisoning  her  with 
fat  words  ?  That 's  how  the  snake  licks  the 
turtle  before  he  gulfs  her  — '  t  is  to  make  her 
sleek,  look  you !  Well,  go  thy  way,  dolt  and 
blunderhead.  For  me  —  old  as  I  am  —  I  will 
shoot  a  last  bolt  for  Mariola.  This  very  night 
after  supper  I  go  to  the  Sbirro  :  and  thy  thanks 
will  be  a  rounder  oath  and  some  more  knave's 
tricks  with  my  baskets." 

"  No  thanks  are  owing,  Marco  Zoppa ; " 
Maso  was  ashy  with  shame  and  rage  at  the  old 
man's  placid  benevolence.  "  Marco  Zoppa, 


i88  The  Soul  of  a  City 

thou  hast  been  my  enemy  ever,  and  I  have 
borne  it"  —  the  Cafe7  roared  with  laughter; 
a  fat  old  Capuchin  nearly  had  a  fit.  Maso 
looked  round  with  fright  in  his  eyes.  He 
went  on,  "Now  thou  hast  gone  too  far  — 
insulting  me  grossly  before  these  citizens. 
Thou  hast  brought  thine  end  upon  thyself." 
He  ran  away  fighting  through  the  delighted 
crowd.  Everybody  who  could  get  at  him 
slapped  him  on  the  back.  A  big  carter  stove 
his  hat  in. 

Old  Marco  shrugged  his  patient  shoulders 
and  sat  down  to  read  the  Secolo.  He  balanced 
his  silver-rimmed  spectacles  on  his  nose  and 
held  the  journal  at  arm's  length  with  hand  a 
thought  more  shaky,  perhaps,  than  usual. 
Presently  he  looked  up:  "Mother  of  God! 
what  a  white-faced  rogue  it  is!  Eh,  Giu- 
seppe ?  "  "  By  Mars,  if  looks  could  stab,  thou 
hadst  been  riddled  by  the  knife  before  this," 
said  his  friend.  Marco  shrugged  and  went  on 
reading  —  he  was  an  old  man. 

But  when  Carlo  Formaggia  had  heard  the 
debate,  he  turned  a  shade  shinier,  and  his 
eyes  harder  and  brighter.  As  he  motioned 
his  friends  off  with  a  look,  he  swallowed  some- 


The  Soul  of  a  City  189 

thing  hard  in  his  throat.  Then  he  turned 
down  the  first  side  street,  doubled  round  to 
the  right,  turned  to  the  left  down  a  kind  of 
black  sewer-trap  and  let  himself  into  a  wine- 
shop where  he  sat  down,  breathing  short.  He 
drank  brandy  —  but  he  drank  like  a  machine. 
The  muscles  of  his  jaw  were  working  spas- 
modically as  he  sat  rigid  on  a  tub,  leaning 
against  the  counter.  And  he  fingered  some- 
thing at  his  belt.  His  eyes  were  in  a  cold 
stare  :  he  saw  nothing  and  did  n't  move.  But 
he  went  on  drinking  brandy  till  late  in  the 
afternoon,  till  the  Hail  Mary  bells  began  to 
sound  a  tinkling  chorus  through  the  still 
air. 

And  Maso  Cecci,  he  too,  rushed  away  white 
and  chattering.  Rage  had  past  definition  with 
him,  he  saw  things  red,  and  they  choked  him. 
The  air  felt  thick  to  him,  full  of  flies.  He 
brushed  his  hands  before  his  face,  struck  out 
vaguely,  and  swore  as  the  dazzling  black  things 
settled  round  him  again  in  a  swarm.  Irritated, 
maddened  as  he  was,  he  still  heard  the  deri- 
sive yells  of  the  crowd  at  the  birreria  and  saw 
Marco's  calm  wise  old  face  smiling  urbanely 
behind  silver  spectacles.  Cristo  amore !  how 


190  The  Soul  of  a  City 

he  loathed  that  old  man.  Siena  could  never 
hold  the  pair  of  them :  there  must  be  an  end 
—  there  should  be  an  end.  His  heart  gave  a 
jerk  under  his  vest  as  he  thought  of  it.  An 
end!  —  an  end  of  his  eternal  fretting  jealousy 
in  the  Campo,  his  continued  sense  of  being 
worsted,  of  galling  inferiority  to  that  method- 
ical old  villain.  An  end  of  his  worries  about 
Isotta  ;  an  end  —  ah  1  but  there  would  be  some- 
thing rarer  than  that  ?  To  a  man  like  Maso, 
a  small  man,  of  immoderate  self-esteem,  and 
that  self-esteem  always  on  the  smart,  there  is 
another  satisfaction  —  that  of  seeing  the  bet- 
ter man  totter  and  slip  forward  to  his  knees. 
This  insufferable  old  Marco  who  was  always 
so  right,  with  his  slow  methods  and  accursed 
accuracy  —  to  see  him  stumble  and  drop ! 
That  was  what  made  Maso's  heart  flutter  and 
thud  against  his  skin.  And  then,  as  he  thought 
of  it,  it  seemed  inevitable.  It  could  be  done 
in  a  minute,  via  !  The  old  man  was  alone  — 
it  would  be  dusk  —  he  would  peer  forward 
through  the  gloom  to  open  the  door  and  — 
Madre  di  Dio  ! —  and  then  !  Maso  was  sweat- 
ing ;  the  back  of  his  palate  itched  intolerably ; 
something  hot  and  sticky  clogged  his  mouth 


The  Soul  of  a  City  191 

and  glued  his  tongue  against  the  roof  of  it. 
His  knees  shook  so  that  he  could  scarcely 
walk.  Some  little  boys  stood  to  stare  at  him 
as  he  lurched  by,  and  laughed  stealthily  to  see 
the  hated  Maso  tipsy.  But  Maso  was  uncon- 
scious of  all  this  :  he  staggered  on  homewards 
with  scorching  eyes.  .  .  . 

Old  Marco  lived  down  beyond  the  Railway 
Station  —  a  room  in  a  crazy  block  of  buildings 
that  had  been  run  up  for  the  needs  of  the  fac- 
tory hands.  It  was  like  a  great  smooth  cliff, 
this  block,  and  was  washed  over  a  raw  pink, 
but  it  glowed  in  the  setting  sun  that  evening, 
like  the  city  herself  and  all  the  hills,  the  col- 
our of  bright  blood.  As  Maso  neared  its  blind 
face,  stepping  warily  with  outstretched  neck 
like  some  obscene  bird,  and  with  one  hand 
under  his  coat  —  the  sun  was  going  down  into 
a  purple  bank  of  cloud.  He  gilded  the  edges 
as  he  sank  and  shot  broad  rays  of  crimson 
light  up  into  the  green  sky.  Here  and  there 
a  star  twinkled  faint ;  the  city  lay  over  him  like 
a  cloudy,  silent  company  of  rocks ;  the  tower 
of  the  Palazzo  ran  up  into  the  pallor  of  the 
sky,  a  shaking  spear. 

There  was  but  one  glimmer  of  light  in  the 


192  The  Soul  of  a  City 

whole  ghostly  wall  of  tenements  and  that, 
Maso  knew,  was  Marco  Zoppa's.  Every  soul 
else  was  crowded  in  the  Campo  waiting  for 
the  fireworks.  And,  as  he  thought,  he  heard 
a  dull  thud  behind  him,  and  turned ;  and  there, 
far  up,  a  single  shaft  of  flame  shot  aloft,  and 
stayed,  and  burst  into  a  fan  of  lights ;  and  a 
puff  told  him  it  was  the  first  rocket.  "  Ecco  ! 
Madre  di  Dio,  a  sign  !  a  sign  !  So  will  /  go 
up  ;  and  so  shall  my  enemy  come  down.''  And 
Maso  crept  up  the  stairway  breathing  thick 
and  short.  .  .  . 

With  a  hand  still  under  his  cloak  he  rapped 
his  knuckles  on  the  door.  No  answer.  An 
echo,  only,  fluttered  and  grew  faint  down  the 
stone  steps.  He  hoisted  his  cloak  from  the 
shoulder  and  swung  his  right  arm  free.  Then 
he  knocked  again.  Nothing.  No  sign.  Heavy 
silence ;  only  a  distant  murmur  of  voices,  muf- 
fled and  infinitely  far,  from  the  Campo  on  the 
hill. 

"  The  game  has  flown  !  Or  the  old  dog 
sleeps."  Maso  sighed,  for  he  wanted  to  see 
him  drop  gurgling  to  his  knees.  Still,  it  made 
his  affair  easier.  He  gave  one  fierce  hoist  to 
his  cloak,  twitched  his  right  arm  once  or  twice, 


The  Soul  of  a  City  193 

and  gently  turned  the  handle.  Then  he  stepped 
lightly  and  daintily  into  the  room. 

A  candle  guttered  on  a  little  table  in  the 
corner,  and  the  Crucified  showed  white  upon 
the  black  cross  above.  Marco  Zoppa  lay  on 
his  bed  with  his  throat  cut  from  ear  to  ear.  The 
cut  was  so  resolute  that  his  head  stuck  out  at 
an  angle  from  his  body  —  almost  a  right  angle  ; 
and  in  some  struggle  he  had  got  his  nostril 
sliced.  That  gave  him  an  odd,  mesquin  ex- 
pression, lying  there  with  his  mouth  open  and 
his  yawning  nostril,  as  if  he  wanted  to  sneeze. 
The  room  smelt  stale  and  sour ;  the  thick  air 
gathered  in  a  misty  halo  round  the  candle, 
and  a  fat  shroud  of  tallow  drooped  over  the 
edges  of  the  candlestick. 

Maso  dropped  his  long,  clean  knife  ;  dropped 
on  to  his  knees  and  wailed  like  a  chained  dog. 
He  could  not  take  his  eyes  from  the  horrible 
black  pit  between  the  dead  man's  chin  and 
trunk.  Out  of  that  pit  a  thin  scarlet  stream 
was  still  slipping  lazily,  slowly,  and  trailing 
down  the  white  coverlid  to  the  floor.  Maso's 
wailing  attracted  a  dog  near  by.  He  too  set 
off  howling  from  behind  his  door:  and  then 
another,  and  another.  There  was  a  chorus  of 


194  The  Soul  of  a  City 

howls,  long-drawn,  pitiful,  desolate  ;  and  Maso, 
the  only  man  in  that  woeful  company,  howled 
like  any  dog  of  the  pack. 

Gradually  his  moaning  sank  and  then 
stopped  with  a  dry  sob.  He  crawled  on  his 
knees  a  little  nearer  to  the  bed  and  eyed  fear- 
fully a  patch  of  blood  on  the  counterpane. 
Just  God !  what  was  that  patch  ?  A  faint 
circle  smeared  with  the  finger,  and  through 
the  midst  of  it  a  ragged  dart.  Carlo  For- 
maggia  had  been  there  1  He  knew  that  mark  ! 
And  then  the  whole  truth  blazed  before  him 
like  a  sheet  of  fire.  He  fell  forward  on  his 
face.  The  thin  thread  of  scarlet  from  Marco 
Zoppa's  gaping  throat  crawled  drop  by  drop 
on  to  his  shoulder. 

Carlo  Formaggia  had  limed  his  bird. 


XIII 
WITH  THE  BROWN  BEAR 

)  HE  secret  of  happy  travelling  (and 
of  Turkish  baths)  is  contrast.  Suffer, 
that  you  may  drowse  thereafter: 
grill,  that  you  may  have  a  heat  on  you  worth 
assuagement.  Wherefore,  to  the  Italian  wan- 
derer, it  will  be  worth  while  to  endure  the 
fierceness  of  the  Lombard  plain,  even  the 
gilded  modernisms  of  Milan  (blistering  though 
they  may  be  under  the  stroke  of  the  naked 
sun)  and  the  dusty,  painful  traverse  of  the 
Apennines,  to  drop  down  at  last  into  the 
broad  green  peace  of  the  Val  D'Arno.  Take, 
however,  the  first  halting-place  you  can.  You 
will  find  yourself  in  a  hollow  of  the  hills,  help- 
ing the  brown  bear  of  Pistoja  keep  the  North- 
ern gates  of  Tuscany.  It  is  not  unlikely  that 
the  Apennine  may  "walk  abroad  with  the 
storm,"  or  hide  his  moss-brown  slopes  in  great 
sheets  of  mist.  This,  while  it  means  a  fine 
sight,  means  also  rain  for  Pistoja.  A  quiet 


196  With  the  Brown  Bear 

rain  will  accordingly  fall  upon  the  little  city, 
gently  but  persistently.  Only  in  the  gleams 
may  you  guess  that  you  have  the  Tuscan  sky 
over  you  and  the  smiling  Tuscan  Art  round 
about.  But  the  ways  of  the  Pistolesi  will 
confirm  the  feeble  knees :  such  at  least  was 
my  case. 

For  the  Pistolesi  were  there  beside  foul 
weather,  and  splashed  about  under  green 
umbrellas  with  prodigious  jokes  to  cut  at  each 
other's  expense,  of  a  sort  we  reserve  for  Spring 
or  early  June.  For  them,  with  a  vintage  none 
too  good  to  be  garnered,  it  might  have  been 
the  finest  weather  in  the  world ;  but  I  am 
bound  to  add  my  belief  that  they  would  have 
laughed  were  it  the  worst.  With  no  money, 
no  weather,  and  taxes  intolerable,  Pistoja 
laughed  and  looked  handsome.  Was  not 
Boccaccio  a  Pistolese  ?  I  was  reminded  of  his 
book  at  every  turn  of  the  road :  life  is  a  wan- 
ton story  there,  or,  say,  a  Masque  of  Green 
Things,  enacted  by  a  splendid  fairy  rout. 
They  were  still  the  well-favoured  race  Dino 
Compagni  described  them  far  back  in  the 
fourteenth  century  —  "  formati  di  bella  statura 
oltre  a'  Toscani,"  he  says.  The  words  hold 


With  the  Brown  Bear  197 

good  of  their  grandsons  —  the  men  leaner  and 
longer,  hardier  and  keener  than  you  find  them 
in  Lucca  or  Siena  ;  and  the  women  carry  their 
heads  high,  and  when  they  smile  at  you  (as 
they  will)  you  think  the  sun  must  be  shining. 
They  are  a  strong  race.  At  pallone  one  day, 
I  saw  muscles  "  all  a-ripple  down  the  back," 
arms  and  shoulders,  which  would  have  intox- 
icated the  great  old  "  amatore  del  persona  " 
himself.  For  their  vivacity,  it  is  racial ;  I 
think  all  Tuscans,  more  or  less,  retain  the 
buoyant  spirits,  the  alertness  as  of  birds, 
which  crowned  Italy  with  Florence  instead  of 
Rome  or  Milan.  Tuscan  Art  is  a  proof  of 
that,  and  Tuscan  Art  can  be  studied  at  its 
roots  in  Pistoja :  you  see  there  the  naked 
thing  itself  with  none  of  the  wealth  of  Florence 
to  make  the  head  swim.  If  Florence  had 
stopped  short  at  the  death  of  Giuliano  de' 
Medici,  you  might  say  Pistoja  was  Florence 
seen  through  the  diminishing-glass.  Is  not 
that  ribbed  dome,  with  its  purple  mass  dom- 
ineering over  the  huddled  roofs,  Brunell- 
eschi's  ?  It  is  a  faithful  copy  of  Vasari's 
hatching ;  but  no  matter.  So  with  the 
Baptistry,  the  towers,  the  grim  old  corniced 


198  With  the  Brown  Bear 

palaces,  the  sdruccioli  and  gloomy  clefts  which 
serve  for  streets.  But  you  would  be  wrong. 
Pisa  is  the  real  parent  of  Pistoja,  as  indeed 
she  is  of  Florence  —  Dante's  Florence.  Pisa's 
magnificent  building  repeats  to  itself  here : 
Gothic  with  a  touch  of  Latin  sanity,  a  touch 
of  the  genuine  Paganism  which  loves  the 
daedal  earth  and  cannot  bring  itself  to  be  out 
of  touch  with  it.  San  Giovanni  fuoricivitas, 
what  a  rock-hewn  church  it  is !  A  rigid 
oblong,  dark  as  the  twilight,  running  with  the 
street  without  belfry  or  window  or  fagade. 
Three  tiers  of  shallow  arcades  on  spiral  col- 
umns, never  a  window  to  be  seen,  and  the 
whole  of  solemn  black  marble  narrowly  striped 
with  white.  Is  there  such  a  beast  as  a  black 
tiger  —  a  tiger  where  the  tawny  and  black 
change  places  ?  San  Giovanni  is  modelled  after 
that  fashion.  It  is  very  old  —  twelfth  century 
at  latest  —  very  shabby  and  weather-beaten, 
dusty  and  deserted.  But  it  will  outlive  Pistoja  ; 
and  that  is  probably  what  Pistoja  desired. 

This  black  and  white,  which  is  so  reminis- 
cent of  early  Florence,  is  carried  out  with 
more  fidelity  to  the  model  in  the  Piazza.  The 
octagonal  Baptistry  is,  no  doubt,  a  copy  of 


With  the  Brown  Bear          199 

Dante's  beloved  church ;  but  it  is  much  better 
placed,  does  not  "  shun  to  be  admired "  like 
its  beautiful  yellowed  sister.  The  Duomo  is 
of  Pisa  again,  and  has  a  tower,  half  belfry, 
half  fortress,  which  once  the  Podesta  seized 
and  held  while  the  plucky  little  town  endured  a 
siege.  The  Brown  Bear  stood  out  long  against 
the  Lily.  But  Lorenzo  showed  his  teeth : 
and  the  Wolf  prevailed  at  last.  Sculpture 
apart,  the  resemblance  to  Florence  stops  here. 
None  of  her  Cinque-cento  bravery  and  little 
of  her  earlier  and  finer  Renaissance  came  this 
way.  But  one  thing  came  ;  one  clean  breath 
from  "that  solemn  fifteenth  century "  did 
blow  to  this  verge  of  Tuscan  soil,  a  breath 
from  Luca  della  Robbia  and  his  men.  They 
may  flower  more  exuberantly  in  Florence, 
those  broad,  blue-eyed  platters  of  theirs ; 
nowhere  is  their  purpose  more  explicit,  their 
charm  more  exquisitely  appreciable  than  here. 
There  is  a  chance  of  considering  the  art  on 
its  own  merits;  better,  you  can  see  it  more 
truly  as  it  was  at  home,  since  Florence  has 
caught  some  little  of  Haussmannism  and  is 
not  as  Luca  left  it.  So  here,  perhaps  best  of 
all,  you  may  try  to  plumb  the  depths  of  the 


2OO  With  the  Brown  Bear 

Delia  Robbia  soul,  —  through  its  purity  and 
limpid  candour,  through  its  shining,  sweetly 
wholesome  homeliness,  down  to  the  crystal 
sincerity  burning  recessed  in  the  shrine.  It 
is  the  fashion  to  say  of  Angelico  da  Fiesole 
that  his  was  a  naivete'  which  amounted  to 
genius :  a  thin  phrase,  which  may  neverthe- 
less pass  to  qualify  the  inspired  miniaturist. 
The  religiosity  of  the  Delia  Robbia,  while  no 
less  naive,  is  really  far  other.  It  is  not  Gothic 
at  all,  nor  ascetic,  nor  mystic.  It  would  be 
Latin,  were  it  not  blithe  enough  to  be  Greek. 
It  speaks  of  what  is  and  must  be,  and  is  well 
content ;  not  of  what  should,  or  might  be,  if 
one  could  but  tear  off  this  crust.  It  seems 
probable  that  it  speaks  as  pure  a  Paganism  — 
just  that  very  Paganism  which  Pisan  building 
represents  —  as  has  been  seen  since  the  work- 
men of  Tanagra  fashioned  their  little  clay 
familiars  for  the  tombs,  slim  Greek  girls  in 
their  reedy  habit  as  they  lived,  or  chattering 
matrons  like  those  you  read  of  in  Theocritus. 
Much  fine  phrasing  has  been  spent  upon  the 
effort  to  analyse  the  aesthetics  of  Delia  Robbia 
ware.  Its  inexhaustible  charm  is  unquestion- 
able ;  but  just  where  does  it  catch  one's 


With  the  Brown  Bear          201 

breath  ?  Not  altogether  in  the  clean  colour- 
ing, like  nothing  so  much  as  that  of  a  cool, 
glazed  dairy  at  home,  —  "  milky-blue,"  "cream- 
white,"  "butter-yellow,"  "parsley-green,"  all 
the  dairy  names  come  pat  to  pen  —  ;  not  neces- 
sarily in  the  sheer,  April  loveliness  of  form 
and  expression,  though  that  would  count  for 
much ;  nor,  I  believe,  as  Mr.  Pater  would  have 
us  acknowledge,  in  the  evanescent  delicacy  of 
each  motive  and  sentiment,  —  the  arresting  of 
a  single  sigh,  a  single  wave  of  desire,  a  single 
stave  of  the  Magnificat.  All  this  is  true,  and 
true  only  of  Luca,  and  yet  the  whole  charm  is 
not  there.  Rather,  I  think,  you  will  find  it  in 
the  fusing  of  humble  material  —  the  age-old 
clay  of  the  potter  (of  the  Master-Potter,  for 
that  matter)  —  and  fine  art,  whereby  the  way- 
side shrine  is  linked  to  the  high  altar,  and 
contadino  and  Vicar-Apostolic  can  hail  a  com- 
mon ideal.  Every  lane,  every  cottage,  has 
its  Madonna-shrine  here ;  lumped  in  clay  or 
daubed  in  raw  colour,  nothing  can  obliterate 
the  sweet  sentiment  of  these  poor  weeds  of 
art,  these  tawdry  little  appeals  to  the  better 
part  of  us.  Madonna  cries  with  a  bared  red 
heart ;  she  supports  a  white  Christ ;  she  stoops 


202  With  the  Brown  Bear 

suave  to  enfold  a  legion  of  children  in  her 
mantle.  She  is  as  Tuscan  as  the  brownest  of 
them  ;  only  a  Tuscan  of  the  rarest  mould,  they 
would  have  you  to  see,  of  a  cleanliness  quite 
unapproachable,  of  a  benignity  wholly  divine. 
One  learns  the  secret  of  devotional  art  best  of 
all  in  such  ephemeral  sanctuaries.  And  since 
Fine  Art  is  the  flower  of  these  shabby  roots, 
Italy  only,  where  Cincinnatus  worked  in  his 
garden,  can  furnish  so  wonderful  a  harmony 
of  opposites.  Surely  it  is  the  most  democratic 
country  in  Europe.  I  saw  a  Colonel  the  other 
day,  in  Bologna,  carrying  a  newspaper  parcel. 
He  was  in  full  uniform.  It  was  the  secret  of 
Saint  Francis  that  he  knew  how  to  bridge  the 
gulf  on  either  side  of  which  we,  prisoners  in 
feudal  holds,  have  cried  to  each  other  in  vain. 
It  was  the  secret  of  the  Delia  Robbia  too. 
The  god  shall  sink  that  we  may  rise  to  meet 
him  in  the  way.  Why  not  ?  Here  in  Pistoja 
are  some  precious  pieces  —  a  Visitation  in  San 
Giovanni,  a  pearly  Madonna  Incoronata  on  the 
big  door  of  San  Giacopo,  concerning  which  it 
would  be  difficult  to  account  to  one's  self  for 
the  added  zest  given  by  the  mantle  of  fine 
dust  which  has  settled  down  on  the  pale  folds 


With  the  Brown  Bear          203 

of  the  drapery  and  outlined  the  square  blue 
panels  of  the  background.  After  all,  is  it  not 
one  more  touch  of  the  hedgerow,  a  symbol  of 
the  hedgerow-faith  not  quite  dead  in  the  bye- 
ways  of  Italy  ? 

But  I  know  I  shall  never  convey  the  spon- 
taneity with  which  Fra  Paolino's  Visitation 
strikes  quick  for  the  heart.  The  thing  is  so 
momentary,  a  mere  quiver  of  emotion  passing 
from  one  woman  to  another.  The  pair  of 
them  have  looked  in  to  the  deeps.  Then  the 
older  stumbles  forward  to  her  knees,  and  the 
girl  stoops  down  to  raise  her.  One  guesses 
the  rest.  They  will  be  sobbing  together  in  a 
minute,  the  girl's  face  buried  in  the  other's 
shoulder.  All  you  are  to  see  is  just  the  wist- 
fulness,  —  "  My  dear !  my  dear  !  "  And  then 
the  Virgin,  full  of  Grace,  but  a  shy  girl  in  her 
teens  for  all  that,  hides  her  hot  cheeks  and 
cries  her  little  wild  heart  to  quietness.  Some 
of  it  is  in  Albertinelli's  fine  picture,  but  not  all. 
All  of  it  —  and  here  's  the  point  —  is  to  be  seen 
in  the  street  among  these  clear-eyed  Tuscan 
women,  just  as  Fra  Paolino  (himself  of  Pis- 
toja)  saw  it  before  our  time,  and  then  fixed  it 
for  ever  in  blue  and  white. 


204  With  the  Brown  Bear 

And  now  cross  the  Piazza  and  come  down 
the  steep  incline  by  the  Palazzo  Commune, 
turn  to  the  left,  and  behold  the  crown  of 
Pistoja,  the  Spedale  del  Ceppo.  Everybody 
knows  Luca's  masterpiece  at  Florence,  the 
Foundling  Hospital  on  whose  front  are  some 
twenty  bambini  in  pure  white  on  blue :  babies 
or  flowers,  one  does  not  know  which.  In 
1514  the  Pistolesi  remodelled  their  own  hos- 
pital, and  called  in  the  successors  to  Luca's 
mystery  to  make  it  joyful.  Andrea,  Giovanni, 
Luca  II  and  Girolamo  came  and  conjured  in 
turn,  and  their  wall-flowers  sprouted  from  the 
limewashed  sides.  I  fancy  myself  out  in  the 
patched  Piazza  del  Ceppo  as  I  write,  looking 
again  on  the  pleasant  quietness  of  it  all.  It 
is  a  grey  day  with  thunder  smouldering  some- 
where in  the  hills,  close  and  heavy.  The  blind 
walls  about  me  stare  hard  in  the  raw  light, 
but  the  wards  of  the  hospital  are  open  back 
and  front  to  the  air ;  it  is  a  rest  for  the  eye  to 
look  into  their  cool  depths  within  the  loggia. 
It  is  a  square,  very  plain,  yellow  building,  this 
hospital,  unrelieved  save  for  its  loggia,  its 
painted  frieze  of  earthenware,  and  a  rickety 
cross  to  denote  its  pious  uses.  Through  the 


With  the  Brown  Bear  205 

wards  I  can  see  to  the  wet  sky  again  and  a 
gable-end  of  vivid  red  and  yellow.  A  thin 
black  Christ  on  his  cross  stands  up  against 
this  bright  square  of  distance,  pathetic  silhou- 
ette enough  for  me  :  reminder  something  sin- 
ister, you  might  think,  for  the  sick  folk  inside. 
But  not  so  ;  this  is  a  crucifix,  not  a  Crucifixion. 
This  poor  wooden  Rood,  bowing  in  the  shade, 
speaks  not  of  high  tragedy,  but  of  the  simple 
annals  of  the  poor  again  ;  not  of  St.  John,  but 
of  St.  Luke.  I  shall  be  called  sentimental; 
but  with  the  band  of  garden  colours  before 
me  I  can't  get  away  from  the  streets  and 
alleys.  I  am  not  sure  the  craftsmen  intended 
I  should. 

The  hospital  itself  is  low  and  square ;  it  is 
limewashed  all  over,  and  has  the  blind  and 
beaten  aspect  of  all  Italian  houses: — red- 
purplish  tiles  running  into  deep  eaves,  jalousied 
windows,  and  the  loggia.  It  is  on  the  face  of 
this  that  the  workers  in  baked  clay  —  "  lavoro 
molto  utile  per  la  state,"  so  cool  and  fresh  is  it, 
so  redolent  of  green  pastures  and  the  winds  of 
April  —  have  moulded  the  Seven  Acts  of  Pure 
Mercy  in  colours  as  pure ;  blue  of  morning 
sky,  grass-green,  daffodil-yellow.  Once  more, 


206  With  the  Brown  Bear 

no  heroics :  here  is  what  the  workmen  knew 
and  we  see.  Black  and  white  frati,  not  ideal- 
ised at  all,  but  sleek  and  round  in  the  jaw  as 
a  monk  will  get  on  oil  and  asciutta,  minister 
to  sun-burnt  peasants  and  ruddy  girls,  as 
massive  in  the  waist  and  stout  in  the  ankle  as 
their  sisters  of  to-day.  Then,  of  course,  there 
is  Allegory.  Allegory  of  your  well-ordered, 
gravitated  sort,  which  takes  us  no  whit  farther 
from  wholesome  earth  and  the  men  and  women 
so  plainly  and  happily  made  of  it.  No  soar- 
ing, no  transcendentalism.  Carita  is  a  deep- 
breasted  market-girl  nursing  two  brown  babies, 
whom  I  have  just  seen  sprawling  over  a  gourd 
in  the  Campo  Marzio ;  Fortezza,  Speranza, 
Fede,  I  know  them  all,  bless  their  sober,  good 
eyes !  in  the  fruit-market,  or  selling  news- 
papers, or  plaiting  straws  in  the  Piazza.  After 
this  we  slide  into  religion  pure  and  direct,  the 
beautiful  ridiculous  Paganism  which  has  never 
left  the  plain  heathen-folk.  Wreathed  medal- 
lions in  the  spandrils  give  us  Mary  warned, 
Mary  visited,  Mary  homing  to  her  Son,  Mary 
crowned;  what  would  they  do  without  their 
Bona  Dea  in  Tuscany  ?  She  is  of  them,  and 
yet  always  a  little  beyond  their  grasp.  Not 


With  the  Brown  Bear          207 

too  far,  however.  That  means  Gothicism. 
The  advantage  of  the  Italian  religious  ideal  is 
obvious.  Art  may  never  leave  for  long 
together  the  good  brown  earth ;  and  it  can 
serve  religion  well  when  it  plucks  up  a  type 
to  set,  clean  as  God  made  it,  just  a  little  above 
our  reach,  to  show  whose  is  "the  earth  and 
the  fulness  thereof." 

An  example.  I  leave  the  white  and  crum- 
bling Piazza,  its  old  marble  well,  its  beggars, 
its  sick,  and  its  meadow-fresh  border  of  Delia 
Robbia  planting,  and  stray  up  the  Via  del 
Ceppo  towards  the  ramparts.  High  at  a 
barred  window  a  brown  mother  with  a  brown 
dependent  baby  smiles  down  upon  my  way- 
faring. She  has  fine  broad  brows  and  a 
patient  face ;  when  she  smiles,  out  of  mere 
kindness  for  my  solitary  goings,  it  is  pleasant 
to  note  the  gleams  of  light  on  her  teeth  and 
lips.  I  take  off  my  hat,  as  Luca  or  Lippo 
would  have  done,  to  "  ma  cousine  la  Reine 
des  cieux." 

Thus  goes  life  in  Pistoja  and  the  rest  of  the 
world. 


XIV 
FRIENDS  IN  COUNCIL 

Scene  —  Florence :  a  room  in  the  Cardinal's 
Lodging 

THE  CARDINAL  ST.  GEORGE  ;  THE  ARCHBISHOP 
OF  PISA  ;  FRA  ANTONIO,  a  Dominican 

Card.  So  Cesare  won  the  hawks  and  the 
woman  too !  A  good  joke,  you  will  con- 
fess, Monsignore  ? 

Arch.  Your  Eminence  will  kill  me  with  laugh- 
ing. The  wit  of  you  Romans ! 

Card.  Oh,  we  can  be  merry  enough  when 
we  've  a  mind.  But  the  point  of  the  gibe 
is  keener  than  you  think.  Emilia  had 
loved  her  husband  after  all!  "Excel- 
lent !  "  cries  Cesare,  when  he  finds  this 
out :  "  I  win  the  best  sparhawk  in  Rome, 
a  mistress,  and  a  salve  for  my  jealousy 
at  a  blow."  What  do  you  say  to  that  ? 


Friends  in  Council  209 

Arch.  Merry  indeed,  Eminence.  .  .  .  But 
Jacopo  's  late. 

Fra  Ant.  A  sluggish  liver,  but  a  sure  worker. 
He  '11  not  fail. 

Card.  Have  you  won  the  Genoese  ?  How  is 
he  called  ?  Bernardo !  Have  you  won 
him  yet  ? 

Fra  Ant.   I  have  set  my  snares.   Have  patience. 

Card.     Why,  does  he  still  hold  out  ? 

Fra  Ant.  For  a  last  effort.  Oh,  you  have 
nothing  to  fear.  I  am  with  him.  'T  will 
be  fruitless. 

Arch.     You  are  fierce,  Antonio. 

Fra  Ant.  I  am  upon  the  King's  business ; 
and  the  King  is  mocked  —  shall  my  knees 
falter,  and  the  King  bleed  ?  Let  the  sword 
fall ;  let  there  be  scorpions,  yea,  scourges 
thonged  with  steel,  whips  of  fire,  that  the 
Sanctuary  of  the  Holy  Place  be  cleansed. 
Iniquity  spits  blasphemies  at  Heaven,  the 
like  of  which  have  not  been  since  old 
Rome  lay  twisting,  bitten  by  the  mad  dog 
Nero.  I  tell  you  it  must  be  wiped  away, 
seared  and  scorched  away.  Kill,  saith  the 
Lord  of  Hosts  —  being,  as  of  old,  a  jeal- 
ous God,  swift  in  judgment,  and  a  famine 


2io  Friends  in  Council 

wind.  Whereof,  I,  as  it  hath  been  revealed, 
am  the  fang  and  dog-tooth.  See  you  to  it, 
therefore,  that  there  be  no  hitch  nor  draw- 
back. 

Arch.  The  Pope  looks  not  thus  upon  our 
affair. 

Card.  No,  indeed ;  for  the  Holy  Father's  last 
word  to  me  was  "  Mind  you,  no  blood." 
He  is  an  easy  man,  Sixtus,  for  all  the 
world  says. 

Fra  Ant.  See  you,  sir,  the  Pope  's  an  instru- 
ment. So  our  blade  break  not  till  the 
work  be  done,  we  ask  not  where  it  was 
forged,  or  why. 

Card.  Well,  thou  'rt  a  crooked  thorn,  Anto- 
nio !  I  'd  rather  see  thee  at  thy  striking 
than  feel  thy  stab.  Ah,  Jacopo! 

Enter Jacopo  De1  Pazziand  Stefano^  a  priest. 

So;  what  have  you  garnered,  Master 

James,  —  tares  ? 

Jac.     Hot  grain,  Eminence  ;  mustard-seed. 
Arch.     H'm.     A  priest.     Holy  Church  gath- 

ereth  her  forces.     Not  of  my  diocese  I 

think. 
Fra  Ant.     Can  you  bite,  priest  ? 


Friends  in  Council  211 

Stef.  Yes,  monk,  so  the  meat  be  seasoned  to 
my  tooth. 

Jac.  This  man's  sister  was  a  tender  blossom 
which  Giuliano,  smelling,  coveted,  and, 
plucking,  hath  deflowered.  The  maid,  in 
short,  is  no  maid.  Giuliano  thereby  is 
overfed.  We  must  bleed  him  in  the  com- 
pany lest  he  die  of  a  surfeit. 

Arch.  Bad,  bad.  Incontinence  is  a  deadly  sin, 
and  most  abhorrent  to  a  true  man. 

Card.     Shall  we  swear  him  in  ? 

Jac.     Oh,  the  man  is  earnest  —  eh,  Stefano  ? 

Stef.  Try  me.  Being  a  priest,  I  believe  in 
God.  Yet  in  this  matter,  were  God  him- 
self to  advise  me  stay,  I  'd  stay  not,  but 
drive  deeper  inwards,  lest  haply  God 
should  blame  himself  anon  that  he  had 
made  for  man  that  which  was,  after  all, 
but  a  sapling  radish. 

Arch.     Not  of  my  diocese,  I  am  very  sure. 

Fra  Ant.  Oh,  peace !  To  work.  We  are 
agreed  on  all  but  the  when  and  where. 
'T  is  now  Tuesday.  Allow  I  gain  Ber- 
nardo Friday,  as  I  think  I  may. 

Jac.     How  do  you  know  that  ? 

Fra  Ant.     Trust  me :  there  is  a  breeze  aget- 


212  Friends  in  Council 

ting  will  drive  him.  Then  Saturday  is 
clear.  Now,  on  Saturday  — 

Arch.  The  eve  of  Pentecost  and  the  cloven 
tongues ! 

Fra  Ant.  On  Saturday  Eminence  here  will 
feast  his  hosts.  We  will  be  there  to  make 
the  company  sport. 

Card.  This  may  not  be.  It  cannot  be.  Inhos- 
pitality !  Nay,  nay.  The  Pope  would  be 
angered ;  my  person  affronted ;  Holy 
Church  wounded  to  the  heart.  You  must 
never  dream  of  Saturday. 

Fra  Ant.     Pish  ! 

Card.  Nay,  but  indeed,  I  beseech  you  think 
of  it.  Gentlemen,  on  my  honour  I  may 
not.  Think  of  the  grievous  sin,  the  scan- 
dal. Guests  of  their  guest!  And  a  so 
feasted  guest !  Fie,  ingratitude  !  Black  : 
we  are  excellent  friends.  Why,  Sunday 
we  hear  a  mass  together  in  the  Duomo. 
Inhospitality  !  Never.  How  shall  I  serve 
a  mass  with  my  guests  when  I  have  killed 
'em? 

Fra  Ant.     Ha  !     There  is  a  mass  toward  ? 

Card.  Indeed,  indeed,  yes.  High  Mass  on 
Sunday  to  clinch  our  Saturday  loving.  A 


Friends  in  Council  213 

rich  and  fruitful  time  now  !  And  no  guests 
of  mine  then.  Hosts  rather.  There  's  your 
time  now ! 

Joe.  What !  In  the  Duomo  ?  No,  no,  that 
may  never  be. 

Arch.  The  measure  doubtless  would  be  severe . 
\Aside\  Not  my  diocese,  remember. 

Card.  But  what  a  time  !  See.  Your  Medici 
shall  come  unarmed  to  the  mass ;  they 
shall  kneel,  they  shall  bow  themselves 
down.  And  they  've  broad  backs,  your 
Medici  —  no  bungling  there.  Oh,  't  is  the 
time  of  times  !  Saturday  's  no  time  com- 
pared with  it.  For,  look  you,  a  man  might 
be  fore-armed  that  came  afeasting  with  a 
Cardinal.  Some  holy  influence,  some  aura 
—  miracles.  Saturday  !  A  fatal  black  day. 
Bad  as  Friday. 
Jac.  I  '11  do  no  murder  in  the  church. 

Arch.  No,  no :  very  proper.  Cardinal,  you 
will  allow  the  measure,  as  I  have  said,  to 
be  severe.  A  Metropolitan  Church. 

Card.  Murder,  man  !  God  alive,  who  talks 
of  murder  ?  Assassinate  a  tyrant !  Rid 
a  people  that  groaneth  !  Sweep  vermin  ! 
Pest  —  who  's  toward  herein  ? 


214  Friends  in  Council 

Jac.     I  strike  no  blow  in  the  church. 

Card.  Foh !  you  're  craven.  Chalky  white. 
What  say  you,  you  priest  there  ? 

Arch.  Yes,  yes,  let  us  hear  the  voice  of  the 
Curate. 

Stef.     I  say  the  deed  's  a  proper  deed. 

Jac.     Would  you  gravel  a  man  in  the  church  ? 

Stef.     The  church  is  well  enough. 

Jac.     But  at  the  Holy  Mass,  man  ? 

Stef.     Is  he  sure  to  be  there  ? 

Card.     That 's  fixed  ;  he  comes  for  sure. 

Stef.     Then  I  '11  tickle  him  there. 

Arch.     A  strange  Florentine  priest ! 

Card.  But  a  brave  priest !  A  sturdy  priest ! 
And  you,  my  Antonio,  my  spur  of  Domi- 
nic, how  do  you  stand  ? 

Arch.  Yes,  yes.  What  says  the  man  of  God, 
the  man  of  vows  !  Let  us  hear  the  cloister. 

Fra  Ant.  The  cloister  tells  you  that  sin  of 
the  blackest  is  abroad ;  must  be  rid,  must 
be  offered  smoking,  as  a  sacrifice  to  the 
Lord  that  executeth  righteousness  and 
hateth  iniquity.  Wipe  your  altar  steps ! 
saith  the  Lord.  Leave  it  so. 

Card.  There  now.  A  true  man  speaks.  Eh, 
Monsignore. 


Friends  in  Council  215 

Arch.    Your  Eminence  must  be  right.    Still  — 

Card.  Oh,  be  sure  it  is  right.  Messer  Jacopo, 
you  have  heard  the  Church.  As  a  loyal 
son  now,  what  do  you  say. 

J-ac.  Eminence,  I  have  nothing  to  say  — 
being  a  layman.  A  priest  may  do  what 
we  may  not  do.  A  priest,  you  may  say, 
is  at  home  in  a  church. 

Card.  [Aside]  Winds  the  images,  eh  ?  Moves 
the  Joints!  Mehercti !  he  has  us  there, 
by  the  faith  of  a  Christian!  [Aloud] 
Well,  well,  De'  Pazzi,  that  may  be.  Nev- 
ertheless I  must  be  sure  you  are  with  us 
in  countenance.  You  rise  with  the  lieges, 
you  raise,  indeed,  the  lieges  for  Church 
and  liberty  ?  You  will  be  there  ? 

jfac.  I  will  be  there  armed ;  my  men  shall  be 
posted  and  armed.  But,  by  the  mass,  I 
strike  no  blow  in  a  church.  If  the  crows, 
that  know  that  nest,  do  but  cleave  thor- 
oughly, Master  Magnificent,  Lorenzo  the 
Great,  is  a  dead  man. 

Stef.  Lorenzo?  What  of  Lorenzo  ?  Our  man's 
Giuliano,  a  villain  — ah,  and  dead  villain 
if  my  prong  slithers  home.  Lorenzo ! 
Saints  forbid. 


216  Friends  in  Council 

Card.     [Aside]     Death  !    What  a  nice  rogue  ; 

to  kill  on  appetite ;  so  soon  cloyed  with 

killing!     A  pretty  fuss  to   Roman  ears. 

[Aloud]    Nay,  honest  friend,  let  be.   Giu- 

liano  is  your  man,  look  you. 
Stef.     One  spake  of  Lorenzo. 
yac.     A  mere  slip  of  a  hasty  tongue :  done  in 

the  heat. 
Arch.     In  the  heat !    In  the  heat !    God,  how 

hot  is  this  work  to  a  plainish  man  ! 
Card.     [To  Fra  Ant.]     You  will  have  trouble 

with  this  dainty  dog,  if  you  go  not  warily. 
Arch.     Is  it  too  late,  Eminence,  to  be  off  with 

this? 

Card.     'Sdeath,  fool,  are  you  white  ? 
Stef.     I  do  not  touch  Lorenzo.     God  forbid. 
Fra  Ant.    [Aside]    I  must  humour  this  knave. 

Hark  'ee,  priest,  Giuliano  's  the  man. 
Stef.    Giuliano  's  a  damned  thief ;  he  's  robbed 

mine  own. 
Fra  Ant.     Whom  has  he  not  robbed,  priest  ? 

We  must  rid  him. 
Stef.     We  '11  so,  never  fear.     Who  spake   of 

Lorenzo  ? 
Card.     Why  none!     'T  was  idle.     Lorenzo? 

The  world's  friend,  patron  of  Florence; 


Friends  in  Council  217 

as  good  as  any  saint  among  the  black  let- 
ters already.  Thou  'rt  a  mad  priest. 

Arch.  We  must  needs  love  Lorenzo  ;  and  will 
show  it  yet,  friend. 

Card.  \Aside\  Hide  your  rancour,  fool,  that 
would  stab  crawling !  So,  friends,  till 
mass-time  in  the  Duomo,  when  so  it  fall 
we  may  all  be  there,  and  at  work.  And 
—  and  —  the  Lord  be  with  you. 

Omnes.     Et  cum  spiritu  tuo. 


XV 
DEAD  CHURCHES  AT  FOLIGNO 

j  ROM  my  roof-top,  whither  I  am  fled 
to  snatch  what  cooler  airs  may  drift 
into  this  cup  of  earth,  I  can  see 
above  the  straggling  tiles  of  gable  and  loggia 
the  cupolas  and  belfries  of  many  churches.  I 
know  they  are  all  dead ;  for  I  have  wound  a 
devious  way  through  the  close  inhospitable 
streets  and  met  them  or  their  ghosts  at  every 
corner.  The  ghost  of  a  dead  church  is  the 
worst  of  all  disembodied  sighs :  he  wails  and 
chatters  at  you.  Here  I  have  seen  churches 
whose  towers  were  fallen  and  their  tribunes 
laid  bare  to  the  insults  of  the  work-a-day 
world.  There  were  churches  with  ugly  gashes 
in  them,  fresh  and  smarting  still;  some  had 
sightless  eyes,  as  of  skulls;  and  there  were 
churches  piecemeal  and  scattered  like  the 
splinters  of  the  True  Cross.  A  great  foliated 
arch  of  travertine  would  frame  a  patch  of 


Dead  Churches  at  Foligno       219 

plaster  and  soiled  casement  just  broad  enough 
for  some  lolling  pair  of  shoulders  and  shock- 
head  atop ;  a  sacred  emblem,  some  Agnus 
indefinably  venerable,  some  proud  old  cogni- 
zance of  the  See,  or  frayed  Byzantine  symbol 
(plaited  with  infinite  art  by  its  former  contriv- 
ers) such  and  other  consecrated  fragments 
would  stuff  a  hole  to  keep  the  wind  away  from 
a  donkey-stall  or  Fabbrica  di pasta  in  a  muddy 
lane.  I  met  dismantled  walls  still  blushing 
with  the  stains  of  fresco  —  a  saint's  robe,  the 
limp  burden  of  the  Addolorata  ;  —  I  met  texts 
innumerable,  shrines  fly-ridden  and,  often  as 
not,  mocked  with  dead  flowers.  And  now,  as 
I  see  these  grey  towers  and  the  grand  purple 
line  of  the  hills  hemming  in  the  Tiber  Valley, 
I  know  I  am  come  down  to  the  sated  South, 
to  the  confines  of  Umbria,  the  country  of  dead 
churches,  and  of  Rome  the  metropolis  of  such 
deplorable  broken  toys.  This  appears  to  me 
the  disagreeable  truth  concerning  the  harbour- 
age of  Saint  Francis  and  Saint  Bernardine, 
and  of  Roberto  da  Lecce,  a  man  who,  if  every- 
body had  his  rights,  would  be  known  as  great 
in  his  way  as  either.  You  will  remember  that 
Luther  found  it  out  before  me.  The  religious 


22O       Dead  Churches  at  Foligno 

enthusiasm  we  bring  in  may  serve  our  turn 
while  we  are  here  :  it  will  be  odd  if  any  sur- 
vive for  the  return ;  impossible  to  go  away  as 
fervid  as  we  come.  Other  enthusiasms  will 
fatten  ;  but  the  wonderful  Gothic  adumbration 
of  Christianity  was  born  in  the  North  and  has 
never  been  healthy  anywhere  else.  Gothicism, 
driven  southward  runs  speedily  to  seed ;  an 
amazing  luxuriance,  a  riot,  strange  flowers  of 
heavy  shapes  and  maddening  savour;  and 
then  that  worst  corruption  to  follow  a  perfec- 
tion premature.  So  mediaeval  Christianity  in 
Umbria  is  a  ruin,  but  not  for  Salvator  Rosa ; 
it  has  not  been  suffered  a  dignified  death. 
That  is  the  sharpest  cut  of  all,  that  the  poor 
bleached  skull  must  be  decked  with  paper 
roses. 

All  this  is  forced  upon  me  by  my  last  days 
in  Tuscany  where  a  lower  mean  has  secured  a 
serener  reign.  I  had  hardly  realised  the  come- 
liness of  its  intellectual  vigour  without  this 
abrupt  contrast.  Pistoja,  with  its  pleasant 
worship  of  the  wholesome  in  common  life ; 
Lucca,  girdled  with  the  grey  and  green  of  her 
immemorial  planes,  and  adorned  with  the  sil- 
very gloss  of  old  marble  and  stone-cutter's 


Dead  Churches  at  Foligno       221 

work  exquisitely  curious ;  then  Prato,  dusty 
little  handful  of  old  brick  palaces  and  black 
and  white  towers,  where  I  heard  a  mass  before 
the  high  altar  but  two  Sundays  ago.  All 
Prato  was  in  church  that  showery  morning,  I 
think.  The  air  was  close,  even  in  the  depths 
of  the  great  nave :  the  fans  all  about  me  kept 
up  a  continual  flicker,  like  bats'  wings,  and 
the  men  had  to  use  their  hats,  or  handkerchiefs 
where  they  had  them.  To  hear  the  responses 
rolling  about  the  chapels  and  echoing  round 
the  timbers  of  the  roof  you  would  have  said 
the  thunder  had  come.  It  was  too  dark  to 
see  Lippi's  light-hearted  secularities  in  the 
choir;  one  saw  them,  however,  best  in  the 
congregation  —  the  same  appealing  innocence 
in  the  grey-eyed  women,  and  the  men  with 
the  same  grave  self-possession  and  the  same 
respectful  but  deliberate  concern  with  their 
own  affairs  which  gives  you  the  idea  that  they 
are  lending  themselves  to  divine  service  rather 
out  of  politeness  than  from  any  more  intimate 
motive.  Lippi  saw  this  in  Prato  four  centu- 
ries ago,  and  I,  after  him,  saw  it  all  again  in  a 
rustic  sacrifice  which  I  should  find  it  hard  to 
distinguish  from  earlier  sacrifices  in  the  same 


222       Dead  Churches  at  Foligno 

spot.  And  indeed  it  is  informed  with  pre- 
cisely the  same  spirit,  and  inarticulate  rever- 
ence for  the  Dynamic  in  Nature.  How  many 
religions  can  be  reduced  to  that !  In  Florence 
again,  what  a  hardy  slip  of  the  old  stock  still 
survives.  You  may  see  how  the  worship  of 
Venus  Genetrix  and  Maria  Deipara  merged  in 
the  work  of  Botticelli  and  Ghirlandajo,  Michael 
Angelo  and  Andrea  del  Sarto;  you  may  see 
how,  if  asceticism  has  never  thriven  there,  there 
was  (and  still  is)  an  effort  after  selection  of 
some  sort  and  a  scrupulous  respect  for  the 
elegantia  quadam  which  Alberti  held  to  be 
almost  divine ;  you  may  see,  at  least,  a  reli- 
gion which  still  binds,  and  which,  making  no 
great  professions,  has  grown  orderly  and  surely 
to  respect.  Thus  from  a  Tuscany,  pagan, 
kindly,  exuberant  and  desponding  by  turns, 
but  always  ready  with  that  long  slow  smile 
you  first  meet  in  the  Lorenzetti  of  Siena  and 
afterwards  find  so  tenderly  expressed  in  its 
different  manifestations  in  the  Delia  Robbia 
and  Botticelli  —  a  smile  where  patience  and 
wistfulness  struggle  together  and  finally  kiss, 
—  I  came  down  to  Umbria  and  a  people  dying 
of  what  M.  Huysmans  grandiosely  calls  "our 


Dead  Churches  at  Foligno       223 

immense  fatigue."  Here  is  a  people  that  has 
loved  asceticism  not  wisely.  This  asceticism, 
pushed  to  the  limit  where  it  becomes  a  kind 
of  sensuality,  has  bitten  into  Umbria's  heart ; 
and  Umbria,  with  a  cloyed  palate,  sees  her 
frescos  peel  and  lets  her  sanctuaries  out  to 
bats  and  green  lizards.  Surely  the  worst  form 
of  moral  jaundice  is  where  the  sufferer  watches 
his  affections  palsy,  but  makes  no  stir. 

From  the  ramp  of  the  citadel  at  Perugia 
you  can  guess  what  a  hornet's  nest  that  grey 
stronghold  of  the  Baglioni  must  have  been. 
It  commands  the  great  plain  and  bars  the  way 
to  Rome.  Westward,  on  a  spur  of  rock, 
stands  Magione  and  a  lonely  tower :  this  was 
their  outpost  towards  Siena.  Eastward  there 
is  a  white  patch  on  the  distant  hills  —  Spello, 
"Mountain  built  with  quiet  citadel,"  quiet 
enough  now.  There  was  always  a  Baglione 
at  Spello  with  his  eyes  set  on  chance  comers 
from  Foligno  and  Rome.  Seen  from  thence, 
Augusta  Perusia  hangs  like  a  storm  cloud 
over  her  cliffs,  impregnable  but  by  strategy, 
as  wicked  and  beautiful  as  ever  her  former 
masters,  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins,  grandsons  of 
Fortebraccio.  The  place  is  like  its  history,  of 


224       Dead  Churches  at  Foligno 

course,  having  in  fact,  grown  up  with  it :  you 
might  say  it  was  the  incarnation  of  Perugia's 
spirit;  it  would  only  be  to  admit,  what  is  so 
obvious  over  here,  that  a  town  is  the  work  of 
art  of  that  larger  soul,  the  body  politic.  So 
to  see  the  crazy  streets  cut  in  steps  and 
crevasses  across  and  through  the  rocks,  span- 
ning a  gorge  with  a  stone  ladder  or  boring  a 
twisted  tunnel  under  the  sheer  of  the  Etruscan 
walls,  to  note  the  churches  innumerable  and 
the  foundations  of  the  thirty  fortress-towers 
she  once  had  —  all  this  is  to  read  the  secret 
of  Perugia's  two  love  affairs.  Of  her  towers 
Julius  II  left  but  two  standing,  blind  pillars  of 
masonry ;  but  there  were  thirty  of  them  once, 
and  the  Baglioni  held  them  all,  for  a  season. 
Now  it  was  these  wild  Baglioni  —  "filling  the 
town  with  all  manner  of  evil  living,"  says 
Matarazzo,  but  nevertheless  intensely  beloved 
for  their  bold  bearing  and  beauty,  as  of  young 
hawks  ;  —  it  was  just  these  blood-stained  strip- 
lings, this  Semonetto  who  rode  shouting  into 
the  Piazza  after  an  affray  and  swept  his 
clogged  hair  clear  of  his  eyes  that  he  might 
see  to  kill,  this  black  Astorre,  "  of  the  few 
words,"  who  was  murdered  in  his  shirt  on  his 


Dead  Churches  at  Foligno       225 

marriage-eve  by  his  cousin  and  best  friend ;  it 
was  this  very  cousin  Grifone,  so  beautiful  that 
"he  seemed  an  angel  of  Paradise,"  who,  in 
his  turn,  was  cut  down  and  laid  out  with  his 
dead  allies  below  San  Lorenzo  that  his  widow 
might  not  fail  of  rinding  him  and  his  marred 
fairness  —  it  was  just  this  stormy  crew  that 
fell  weeping  at  Suor  Brigida's  meek  feet,  con- 
fessed their  sins  and  received  the  Communion 
(encompassers  and  encompassed  together,  and 
a,ll  in  a  rapture)  on  the  very  eve  of  the  great 
slaughter  of  1500;  it  was  they  who  adorned 
the  Oratory  of  San  Bernardino  and  made  it 
the  miracle  of  rose-colour  and  blue  that  it  is, 
who  reared  the  enormous  San  Domenico  below 
the  Gate  of  Mars,  and  who,  in  this  hot-bed  of 
enormity,  nurtured  Perugino's  dreamy  Madon- 
nas. What  it  meant  I  know  not  at  all.  There 
are  other  riddles  as  hard  in  Umbria.  Renan 
saw  the  gentle  cadence  of  the  landscape  — 
violet  hills,  the  silver  gauze  of  water,  oliveyards 
all  of  a  green  mist ;  read  the  Fioretti  and  the 
dolorous  ecstasies  of  Perugino's  Sebastian, 
and  straightway  adapted  the  high-flown  paral- 
lel worked  out  in  detail  by  Giotto.  Umbria 
for  him  was  the  Galilee  of  Italy,  and  Francis 


226       Dead  Churches  at  Foligno 

son  of  Bernard  an  avatar  of  Christ.  But 
Renan  was  apt  to  allow  his  emotions  to  ride 
him.  Another  dazzling  contrast,  which  has 
recently  exercised  another  dextrous  French- 
man, is  Siena  with  her  Saint  Catherine  and 
her  Sodoma  who  betrayed  her  —  Saint  Cath- 
erine, as  great  a  force  politically  as  she  was 
spiritually,  and  Sodoma,  who  painted  her  like 
a  Danae  with  love-glazed  eyes  fainting  before 
the  apparition  of  the  Crucified  Seraph. 

There  is  nothing  like  this  in  the  history  of 
Tuscany  whose  palaces  not  long  were  fortresses 
nor  her  monks  at  any  time  successful  politi- 
cians. Cosimo  had  pulled  down  the  Florentine 
towers  or  ever  the  last  Oddi  had  loosed  hold 
of  Ridolfo's  throat.  I  know  that  Siena  is  just 
within  that  province  geographically;  in  tem- 
perament, in  art  and  manner,  she  has  always 
shown  herself  intensely  Umbrian.  Take,  then, 
the  case  of  Savonarola.  The  Florentines 
received  him  gladly  enough  and  heard  him 
with  honest  admiration,  even  enthusiasm. 
Still,  there  is  reason  to  believe  they  took  him, 
in  the  main,  spectacularly,  as  they  also  took 
that  portentous  old  mono-maniac  Gemisthos 
Pletho  who  made  religions  as  we  might  make 


Dead  Churches  at  Foligno       227 

pills.  For,  observe,  Savonarola  lost  his  head 
—  and  his  life,  good  soul !  —  where  the  Floren- 
tines did  not.  The  cobbler  went  beyond  his 
last  when  the  Frate  essayed  politics.  He 
suffered  accordingly.  But  in  Perugia,  in 
Siena,  in  Gubbio  and  Orvieto,  the  great  reviv- 
alists Bernardine,  Catherine,  Fra  Roberto, 
held  absolute  rule  over  body  and  soul.  For 
the  moment  Baglione  and  Oddi  kissed  each 
other ;  all  feuds  were  stayed ;  a  man  might 
climb  the  black  alleys  of  a  night  without  any 
fear  of  a  knife  to  yerk  him  (the  Ancient's 
word)  under  the  ribs  or  noose  round  his  neck 
to  swing  him  up  to  the  archway  withal.  So 
Catherine  brought  back  Boniface  (and  much 
trouble)  from  Avignon,  and  Da  Lecce  wrote 
out  a  new  constitution  for  some  rock-bound 
hive  of  the  hills,  whose  crowd  wailing  in  the 
market-place  knew  the  ecstasy  of  repentance, 
and  ran  riot  in  religious  orgies  very  much 
after  the  fashion  of  the  Greater  Dionysia  or,  say, 
the  Salvation  Army.  And  how  Niccolb  Alunno 
would  have  painted  the  Salvation  Army ! 

So  it  does  seem  that  the  two  great  passions 
of  Umbria  burnt  themselves  out  together. 
They  were,  indeed,  the  two  ends  of  the  candle. 


228       Dead  Churches  at  Foligno 

When  the  Baglioni  fell  in  the  black  work  of 
two  August  nights,  only  one  escaped.  And 
with  them  died  the  love  of  the  old  lawless  life 
and  the  infinite  relish  there  was  for  some 
positive  foretaste  of  the  life  of  the  world  to 
come.  Both  lives  had  been  lived  too  fast : 
from  that  day  Perugia  fell  into  a  torpor,  as 
Perugino,  the  glass  of  his  time  and  place,  also 
fell.  Perugino,  we  know,  had  his  doubts  con- 
cerning the  immortality  of  the  soul,  but  painted 
on  his  beautiful  cloister-dreams,  and  knocked 
down  his  saints  to  the  highest  bidder.  Vasari 
assures  me  that  the  chief  solace  of  the  old 
prodigal  in  his  end  of  days  was  to  dress  his 
young  wife's  hair  in  fantastic  coils  and  braids. 
A  prodigal  he  was  —  true  Peruginese  in  that  — 
prodigal  of  the  delicate  meats  his  soul  afforded. 
His  end  may  have  been  unedifying;  it  must 
at  least  have  been  very  pitiful.  Nowadays  his 
name  stands  upon  the  Corso  Vannucci  of  the 
town  he  uttered,  and  in  the  court  wall  of  a 
little  recessed  and  colonnaded  house  in  the 
Via  Deliziosa.  Meantime  his  frescos  drop 
mildewed  from  chapel  walls  or  are  borne 
away  to  a  pauper  funeral  in  the  Palazzo 
Communale. 


Dead  Churches  at  Foligno       229 

In  his  finely  studied  Sensations  M.  Paul 
Bourget,  it  seems  to  me,  flogs  the  air  and  fails 
to  climb  it  when  he  struggles  to  lay  open  the 
causes  of  poor  Vannucci's  embittering.  If 
ever  painting  took  up  the  office  of  literature  it 
was  in  the  fifteenth  century.  The  quattrocen- 
tisti  stand  to  Italy  for  our  Elizabethan  drama- 
tists. This  may  have  produced  bad  painting: 
Mr.  George  Moore  will  tell  you  that  it  did.  I 
am  not  sure  that  it  very  greatly  matters,  for, 
failing  a  literature  which  was  really  dramatic, 
really  poetical,  really  in  any  sense  representa- 
tive, it  was  as  well  that  there  led  an  outlet 
somewhere.  At  any  rate  Lippi  and  Botticelli, 
to  those  who  know  them,  are  expressive  of 
the  Florentine  temper  when  Pulci  and  Politian 
are  distorted  echoes  of  another;  Perugino 
leads  us  into  the  recesses  of  Perugia  while 
Graziani  keeps  us  fumbling  at  the  lock.  But 
Perugino's  languorous  boys  and  maids  are  the 
figments  of  a  riotous  erotic,  of  a  sensuous 
fancy  without  imagination  or  intelligence  or 
humour.  His  Alcibiades,  or  Michael  Arch- 
angel, seems  greensick  with  a  love  mainly 
physical ;  his  Socrates  has  the  combed  resig- 
nation of  his  Jeromes  and  Romualds  — 


230       Dead  Churches  at  Foligno 

smoothly  ordered  old  men  set  in  the  milky 
light  of  Umbrian  mornings  and  dreaming  out 
placid  lives  by  the  side  of  a  moonfaced 
Umbrian  beauty,  who  is  now  Mary  and  now 
Luna  as  chance  motions  his  hand.  How 
penetrating,  how  distinctive  by  the  side  of 
them  seems  Sandro's  slim  and  tearful  Anima 
Mundi  shivering  in  the  chill  dawn !  With 
what  a  strange  magic  does  Filippino  usher  in 
the  pale  apparition  of  the  Mater  Dolorosa  to 
his  Bernard,  or  flush  her  up  again  to  a  heaven 
of  blue-green  and  a  glory  of  burning  cherubim  ? 
This  he  does,  you  remember,  with  rocket-like 
effect  in  a  chapel  of  the  Minerva  in  Rome. 
But  it  is  the  unquenchable  thirst  of  the 
Umbrians  for  some  spiritual  nutriment,  some 
outlet  for  their  passion  to  be  found  only  in 
bloodshed  or  fainting  below  the  Cross,  some 
fierce  and  untameable  animal  quality  such  as 
you  see  to-day  in  the  torn  gables,  the  towers 
and  bastions  of  Perugia,  it  is  the  spirit  which 
informed  and  made  these  things  you  get  in 
Perugino's  pictures  —  in  the  hot  sensualism  of 
their  colour-scheme,  the  ripeness  and  bloom 
of  physical  beauty  encasing  the  vague  longing 
of  a  too-rapid  adolesence.  The  desire  could 


Dead  Churches  at  Foligno       231 

never  be  fed  and  the  bloom  wore  off.  Look 
at  Duccio's  work  on  the  fagade  of  San  Ber- 
nardino. Duccio  was  a  Florentine,  but  where 
in  Florence  would  you  see  his  like  ?  What  a 
revel  in  disproportion  in  these  long-legged 
nymphs,  full-lipped  and  narrow-eyed  as  any  of 
Rossetti's  curious  imaginings.  Take  the 
Poverta,  a  weedy  girl  with  the  shrinking  paps 
of  a  child.  Here  again  (exquisite  as  she  is  in 
modelling  and  nicety  of  expression)  you  get 
the  enticement  of  a  malformation  which  is 
absolutely  un-Greek  —  unless  you  are  to  count 
Phrygia  within  the  magic  ring-fence  —  and  only 
to  be  equalled  by  the  luxury  of  Beccadelli. 
You  get  that  in  Sodoma  too,  the  handy  Lom- 
bard; you  have  it  in  Perugino  and  all  the 
Umbrians  (in  some  form  or  other)  ;  but  never, 
I  think,  in  the  genuine  Tuscan  —  not  even  in 
Botticelli — and  never,  of  course,  in  the 
Venetians.  Duccio  modelled  these  things 
while  the  Delia  Robbia  were  at  their  Hellenics  ; 
and  a  few  years  after  he  did  them,  came  the 
end  of  the  Baglioni  and  all  such  gear.  The 
end  of  real  Umbrian  art  was  not  long.  Peru- 
gino awoke  to  have  his  doubts  of  the  soul's 
immortality.  No  great  wonder  there,  perhaps, 


232       Dead  Churches  at  Foligno 

given  he  acknowledged  a  merciful  heaven.  .  .  . 
I  chanced  to  meet  an  old  woman  the  other 
day  in  a  country  omnibus.  We  journeyed 
together  from  Prato  to  Florence  and  became 
very  friendly.  Your  dry  old  woman,  who  hath 
had  losses,  who  has  become,  in  fact,  world- 
worn  and  very  wise,  or  who,  like  one  of 
Shakespeare's  veterans  —  the  Grave-digger,  or 
the  Countryman  in  Antony  and  Cleopatra  — 
has  probed  the  ball  and  found  it  hollow ;  such 
a  battered  and  fortified  soul  in  petticoats  is 
peculiar  to  Italy,  and  countries  where  the 
women  work  and  the  men,  pocketing  their 
hands,  keep  sleek  looks.  We  had  just  passed 
a  pleasant  little  procession.  It  was  Sunday, 
the  hour  Benediction.  A  staid  nun  was  con- 
voying a  party  of  school-girls  to  church ; 
whereupon  I  remarked  to  my  neighbour  on 
their  pretty  bearing,  a  sort  of  artless  piety  and 
of  attention  for  unknown  but  not  impossible 
blessings  which  they  had  about  them.  But 
my  old  woman  took  small  comfort  from  it. 
She  knew  those  cattle,  she  said :  Capuchins, 
Black,  White  and  Grey, —  knew  them  all. 
Well !  Everybody  had  his  way  of  making  a 
living :  hers  was  knitting  stockings.  A  hard 


Dead  Churches  at  Foligno       233 

life,  via,  but  an  honest.  Here  it  became  me 
to  urge  that  the  religious  life  might  have  its 
compensations,  without  which  it  would  perhaps 
be  harder  than  knitting  stockings;  that  one 
needed  relaxation  and  would  do  well  to  be 
sure  that  it  was  at  least  innocent.  Relaxation 
of  a  kind,  said  she,  a  man  must  have.  Snuff 
now !  She  was  inveterate  at  the  sport.  The 
view  was  very  dry ;  but  I  think  its  reasoned 
limitations  also  very  Tuscan,  and  by  no  means 
exclusive  of  a  tolerable  amount  of  piety  and 
honest  dealing.  Foligno,  by  mere  contrast, 
reminds  me  of  it  —  busy  Foligno  huddled 
between  the  mighty  knees  of  a  chalk  down, 
city  of  falling  churches  and  lazy  handsome 
girls,  just  now  parading  the  streets  with  their 
fans  a-flutter  and  a  pretty  turn  to  each  veiled 
head  of  them. 

As  I  write  the  light  dies  down,  the  wind 
drops,  huge  inky  clouds  hang  over  the  west ; 
the  sun,  as  he  falls  behind  them,  sets  them 
kindling  at  the  edge.  The  worn  old  bleached 
domes,  the  bell-towers  and  turrets  looming  in 
the  blue  dusk,  seem  to  sigh  that  the  century 
moves  so  slowly  forward.  How  many  more 
must  they  endure  of  these  ? 


234       Dead  Churches  at  Foligno 

It  is  the  hour  of  Ave  Maria.     But  only  two 
cracked  bells  ring  it  in. 


ENVOY 

TO   ALL    YOU    LADIES 

^OVELY  and  honourable  ladies,  it  is, 
» as  I  hold,  no  mean  favour  you  have 
'  accorded  me,  to  sit  still  and  smiling 
while  I  have  sung  to  your  very  faces  a  stave 
verging  here  and  there  on  the  familiar.  You 
have  sat  thus  enduring  me,  because,  being 
wrought  for  the  most  part  out  of  stone  or 
painter's  stuff,  your  necessities  have  indeed 
forbidden  retirement.  Yet  my  obligations 
should  not  on  that  account  be  lighter.  He 
would  be  a  thin  spirit  who  should  gain  a  lady's 
friendly  regard,  and  then  vilipend  because  she 
knew  no  better,  or  could  not  choose.  I  hope 
indeed  that  I  have  done  you  no  wrong,  gentil- 
donne.  I  protest  that  I  have  meant  none  ;  but 
have  loved  you  all  as  a  man  may,  who  has,  at 
most,  but  a  bowing  acquintance  with  your 
ladyships.  As  I  recall  your  starry  names,  no 
blush  hinting  unmannerliness  suspect  and 
unconfessed  hits  me  on  the  cheek :  —  Simo- 
netta,  Ilaria,  Nenciozza,  Bettina;  you  too, 


236  Envoy 

candid  Mariota  of  Prato;  you,  snuff-taking, 
wool-carding  ancient  lady  of  the  omnibus  — 
scorner  of  monks,  I  have  kissed  your  hands. 
I  have  at  least  given  our  whole  commerce 
frankly  to  the  world  ;  and  I  know  not  how 
any  shall  say  we  have  been  closer  acquainted 
than  we  should.  You,  tall  Ligurian  Simonetta, 
loved  of  Sandro,  mourned  by  Giuliano  and, 
for  a  season,  by  his  twisted  brother  and  lord, 
have  I  done  well  to  utter  but  one  side  of  your 
wild  humour  ?  The  side  a  man  would  take, 
struck,  as  your  Sandro  was,  by  a  nympholepsy, 
or,  as  Lorenzo  was,  by  the  rhymer's  appetite 
for  wherewithal  to  sonnetteer  ?  If  I  read  your 
story,  it  was  never  pique  or  a  young  girl's 
petulance  drove  you  to  Phryne's  one  justifia- 
ble act  of  self-assertion.  It  was  honesty, 
Madonna,  or  I  have  read  your  grey  eyes  in 
vain ;  it  was  enthusiasm  —  that  flame  of  our 
fire  so  sacred  that  though  it  play  the  incendiary 
there  shall  be  no  crime  —  or  where  would  be 
now  the  uVas  d'elezione  "  ?  —  nor  though  it 
reveal  a  bystander's  grin,  any  shame  at  all.  I 
shall  live  to  tell  that  story  of  thine,  Lady  Simo- 
netta, to  thy  honour  and  my  own  respect ;  for, 
as  a  poet  says, 


Envoy  237 

"  There  is  no  holier  flame 
Than  flutters  torchwise  in  a  stripling  heart, 
Revealing  mystery  all  about,  and  light 
Blinding,  white,  rapturous  —  a  fire  from  Heaven 
To  ash  the  clay  of  us,  and  wing  the  God 
Armed  for  the  freeing  of  a  world  in  chains." 

I  have  seen  all  memorials  of  you  left  behind 
to  be  pondered  by  your  Dante,  Sandro  the 
painting  poet,  —  the  proud  clearness  of  you  as 
at  the  marriage  feast  of  Nastagio  degli  Onesti ; 
the  melting  of  the  sorrow  that  wells  from  you 
in  a  tide,  where  you  hold  the  book  of  your 
over-mastering  honour  and  read  Magnificat 
Anima  Mea  with  a  sob  in  your  throat ;  your 
acquaintance,  too,  with  that  grief  which  was 
your  own  hardening ;  your  sojourn,  wan  and 
woebegone  as  would  become  the  wife  of  Moses 
(maker  of  jealous  gods) ;  all  these  guises  of 
you,  as  well  as  the  presentments  of  your  inno- 
cent youth,  I  have  seen  and  adored.  But  I 
have  ever  loved  you  most  where  you  stand  a 
wistful  Venus  Anadyomene —  "  Una  donzella 
non  con  uman  volto ;  "  for  I  know  your  heart, 
Madonna,  and  see  on  the  sharp  edge  of  your 
threatened  life,  Ardour  look  back  to  maiden 
Reclusion,  and  on  (with  a  pang  of  foreboding) 


238  Envoy 

to  mockery  and  evil  judgment.  Never  fear 
but  I  brave  your  story  out  to  the  world  ere 
many  days.  And  if  any,  with  profane  leer 
and  tongue  in  the  cheek,  take  your  sorrow  for 
reproach  or  your  pitifulness  for  a  shame,  let 
them  receive  the  lash  of  the  whip  from  one 
who  will  trouble  to  wield  it :  non  ragioniam  di 
lor.  For  your  honourable  women  I  give  you 
Ilaria,  the  slim  Lucchesan,  and  my  little  Bet- 
tincina,  a  child  yet  with  none  of  the  vaguer 
surmises  of  adolescence  when  it  flushes  and 
dawns,  but  likely  enough,  if  all  prosper,  to  be 
no  shame  to  your  company.  As  yet  she  is 
aptest  to  Donatello's  fancy :  she  will  grow  to 
be  of  a  statelier  bevy.  I  see  her  in  Ghirlanda- 
jo's  garden,  pacing,  still-eyed,  calm  and  cold, 
with  Ginevra  de'  Benci  and  Giovanna  of  the 
Albizzi,  those  quiet  streets  on  a  visit  to  the 
mother  of  John  Baptist. 

Mariota,  the  hardy  wife  of  the  metal-smith 
is  not  for  one  of  your  quality,  though  the 
wench  is  well  enough  now  with  her  baby  on 
her  arm  and  the  best  of  her  seen  by  a  poet 
and  made  enduring.  He,  like  our  Bernardo, 
had  motherhood  in  such  esteem  that  he  held 
it  would  ransom  a  sin.  A  sin  ?  I  am  no  cas- 


Envoy  239 

uist  to  discuss  rewards  and  punishments ;  but 
if  Socrates  were  rightly  informed  and  sin 
indeed  ignorance,  I  have  no  whips  for  Mari- 
ota's  square  shoulders.  Her  baby,  I  warrant, 
plucked  her  from  the  burning.  I  am  not  so 
sure  but  you  might  find  in  that  girl  a  respon- 
sive spirit,  and  —  is  the  saying  too  hard  ?  —  a 
teacher.  Contentment  with  a  few  things  was 
never  one  of  your  virtues,  madam. 

There  is  a  lady  whose  name  has  been  whis- 
pered through  my  pages,  a  lady  with  whom  I 
must  make  peace  if  I  can.  Had  I  known  her, 
as  Dante  did,  in  the  time  of  her  nine-year 
excellence  and  followed  her  (with  an  interlude, 
be  sure,  for  the  lady  of  the  window)  through 
the  slippery  ways  of  two  lives  with  much  eat- 
ing of  salt  bread,  I  might  have  grown  into  her 
favour.  But  I  never  did  know  Monna  Beatrice 
Portinari ;  and  when  I  met  her  afterwards  as 
my  Lady  Theologia  I  thought  her  something 
imperious  and  case-hardened.  Now  here  and 
there  some  words  of  mine  (for  she  has  a  high 
stomach)  may  have  given  offence.  I  have 
hinted  that  her  court  is  a  slender  one  in  Italy, 
the  service  paid  her  lip-service ;  the  lowered 
eyes  and  bated  breath  reserved  for  her ;  but 


240  Envoy 

for  Fede  her  sister,  tears  and  long  kisses  and 
the  clinging.  Well !  the  Casa  Cattolica  is  a 
broad  foundation  :  I  find  Francis  of  Umbria 
at  the  same  board  with  Sicilian  Thomas.  If  I 
cleave  to  the  one  must  I  despise  the  other  ? 
Lady  Fede  has  my  heart  and  Lady  Dottrina 
must  put  aside  the  birch  if  she  would  share 
that  little  kingdom.  Religio  habet,  said  Pico  ; 
theologia  autem  invenit.  Let  her  find.  But 
she  must  be  speedy,  for  I  promise  her  the 
mood  grows  on  me  as  I  become  italianato ; 
and  I  cannot  predict  when  the  other  term  of 
the  proposition  may  be  accomplished.  For 
one  thing,  Lady  Theologia,  I  praise  you  not. 
Sympathy  seems  to  me  of  the  essence,  the 
healing  touch  an  excellent  thing  in  woman. 
But  you  told  Virgil, 

"Io  son  fatta  da  Dio,  sua  merce,  tale, 
Che  la  vostra  miseria  non  mi  tange." 

Sympathy,  Madonna  ?  And  Virgil  torturing 
in  a  flame  !  On  these  terms  I  had  rather  roast 
with  the  good  poet  (whose  fault  in  your  eyes 
was  that  he  knew  in  what  he  had  believed) 
than  freeze  with  you  and  Aquinas  on  your 
peak  of  hyaline.  And  as  I  have  found  you, 


Envoy  241 

Donna  Beatrice,  so  in  the  main  have  they  of 
whom  I  pitch  my  pipe.  Here  and  there  a 
man  of  them  got  exercise  for  his  fingers  in 
your  web  ;  here  and  there  one,  as  Pico  the 
young  Doctor  of  yellow  hair  and  nine  hundred 
heresies,  touched  upon  the  back  of  your  ivory 
dais  that  he  might  jump  from  thence  to  the 
poets  out  beyond  you  in  the  Sun.  Your  great 
Dante,  too,  loved  you  through  all.  But,  Ma- 
donna, he  had  loved  you  before  when  you 
were  — 

Donna  pietosa  e  di  novella  etade, 

and,  as  became  his  lordly  soul,  might  never 
depart  from  the  faith  he  had  in  you.  For  me, 
I  protest  I  love  Religion  your  warm-bosomed 
mate  too  well  to  turn  from  her ;  yet  I  would 
not  on  that  account  grieve  her  (who  treats  you 
well  out  of  the  cup  of  her  abounding  charity) 
by  aspersing  you.  And  if  I  may  not  kiss  your 
foot  as  you  would  desire,  I  may  bow  when  I 
am  in  the  way  with  you ;  not  thanking  God 
I  am  not  as  you  are,  but,  withal,  wishing  you 
that  degree  of  interest  in  a  really  excellent 
world  with  which  He  has  blessed  me  and  my 
like,  the  humble  fry. 


242  Envoy 

Lastly,  to  the  Spirits  which  are  in  the 
shrines  of  the  cities  of  Tuscany,  I  lift  up  my 
hands  with  the  offering  of  my  thin  book.  To 
Lucca  dove-like  and  demure,  to  Prato,  the 
brown  country-girl,  to  Pisa,  winsome  maid-of- 
honour  to  the  lady  of  the  land,  to  Pistoja,  the 
ruddy-haired  and  ample,  and  to  Siena,  the 
lovely  wretch,  black-eyed  and  keen  as  a  hawk ; 
even  to  Perugia,  the  termagant,  with  a  scar  on 
her  throat ;  but  chiefest  to  the  Lady  Firenze, 
the  pale  Queen  crowned  with  olive  —  to  all  of 
you,  adored  and  adorable  sisters,  I  offer  hom- 
age as  becomes  a  postulant,  the  repentance  of 
him  who  has  not  earned  his  reward,  thanks- 
giving, and  the  praise  I  have  not  been  able  to 
utter.  And  I  send  you,  Book,  out  to  those 
ladies  with  the  supplication  of  good  Master 
Cino,  schoolman  and  poet,  saying, 

E  se  tu  troverai  donne  gentile, 
Ivi  girai ;  che  la  ti  vo  mandare  ; 
E  dono  a  lor  d'  audienza  chiedi. 

Poi  di  a  costor :  Gittatevi  a  lor  piedi, 
E  dite,  chi  vi  manda  e  per  che  fare, 
Udite  donne,  esti  valletti  umili. 


APPENDIX 


OF  BOILS  AND  THE  IDEAL 

JPHERE,"  said  my  Roman  escort,  as  we 
•  forded  the  Tiber  near  Torgiano,  "  the  haze 
I  is  lifting :  behold  august  Perugia."  I  looked 
^  out  over  the  misty  plain,  and  saw  the  spiked 
ridge  of  a  hill,  serried  with  towers  and  belfries  as  a 
port  with  ships'  masts ;  then  the  grey  stone  walls  and 
escarpments  warm  in  the  sun ;  finally  a  mouth  to  the 
city,  which  seemed  to  engulph  both  the  white  road 
and  the  citizens  walking  to  and  fro  upon  it  like  flies. 
But  it  was  some  time  yet  before  I  could  decipher  the 
image  on  the  gonfalon  streaming  in  the  breeze  above 
the  Signiory.  It  was  actually,  on  a  field  vert,  a  griffin 
rampant  sable,  langued  gules.  "  So  ho !  "  said  the 
guide  when  I  had  described  it,  "  So  ho!  the  Mountain 
Cat  is  at  home  again  ....  And  here  comes  scour- 
ing one  of  the  whelps,"  he  added  in  alarm.  A  young 
man,  black -avised,  bare-headed,  pressing  a  lathered 
horse,  bore  down  upon  us.  He  seemed  to  gain  exulta- 
tion with  every  new  pulse  of  his  strength :  the  Genius 
of  Brute  Force,  handsome  as  he  was  evil.  And  yet 
not  evil,  unless  a  wild  beast  is  evil ;  which  it  probably 
is  not.  He  soon  reached  us,  pulled  up  short  with  a 
clatter  of  hoofs,  and  hailed  me  in  a  raw  dialect,  asking 
what  I  did,  whence  and  who  I  was,  whither  I  went, 
what  I  would?  As  he  spake  —  looking  at  me  with 


246  Of  Boils  and  the  Ideal 

fierce  eyes  in  which  pride,  suspicion,  and  the  shyness 
of  youth  struggled  and  rent  each  other  —  he  fooled 
with  a  straight  sword,  and  seemed  to  put  his  demands 
rather  to  provoke  a  quarrel  than  to  get  an  answer.  I 
wished  no  quarrel  with  a  boy,  so,  as  my  custom  is,  I 
answered  deliberately  that  I  travelled,  and  from  Rome ; 
that  my  name  was  Hewlett,  at  his  service ;  that  I  was 
going  to  Perugia ;  that  I  would  be  rid  of  him.  I  saw 
him  grow  loutish  before  my  adroit  impassivity;  his 
fencing  was  not  with  such  tools.  He  sulked,  and 
must  know  next  what  I  wanted  at  Perugia.  I  told 
him  I  had  business  with  Pietro  Vannucci,  called 
II  Perugino  by  those  who  admired  him  from  a  distance ; 
and  he  seemed  relieved,  withal  a  something  of  con- 
tempt for  my  person  fluttered  on  his  pretty  lip.  At 
any  rate,  he  left  fingering  his  steel  toy.  "  Peter  the 
Pious ! "  he  scoffed.  "  Are  you  of  his  litter  ?  Pots  and 
pans  ?  Off  with  you ;  you  '11  find  him  hoarding  his 
money  or  his  wife.  To  the  wife  you  may  send  these 
from  Semonetto."  Whereat  my  young  gentleman  fell 
to  kissing  his  hand  in  the  air.  I  rose  in  my  stirrups 
and  bowed  elaborately,  and,  taking  off  my  hat  in  the 
act,  put  him  to  some  shame,  for  he  was  without  that 
equipment.  He  pulled  a  wry  face  at  me,  like  any 
schoolboy,  and  cantered  off  on  his  spent  horse,  arms 
akimbo,  and  his  irons  rattling  about  him.  My  guide 
marked  a  furtive  cross  on  his  breast  and  vowed,  I  am 
pretty  sure,  a  score  candles  to  Santa  Maria  in  Cosmedin 
if  ever  he  reached  home.  "  God  is  good,"  he  said, 
"  God  is  very  good.  That  wras  Simon  Baglione." 
"  He  seemed  a  very  unlicked  cub,"  was  all  my  reply. 


Of  Boils  and  the  Ideal          247 

So  we  climbed  the  dusty  steep,  winding  twice  or  thrice 
round  about  the  hill  in  a  brown  plain  set  with  stubbed 
trees,  and  entered  the  armed  city  by  the  Porta  Eburnea. 
Inside  the  walls,  threading  our  way  up  a  spiral  lane 
among  bullock -carts,  cloaked  cavaliers,  monks,  fair- 
haired  girls  carrying  pitchers  and  baskets,  bullies, 
bravoes,  and  well-to-do  burgesses,  we  passed  from  one 
ambush  to  another,  by  dark  gullies,  stinking  traps,  and 
twisted  stairways,  to  the  Via  Deliziosa,  without  ever  a 
hint  of  the  broad  sunshine  or  whiff  of  the  balmy  air 
which  we  had  left  outside  on  the  plain. 

In  a  little  mildewed  court,  where  one  patch  of  light 
did  indeed  slope  upon  a  lemon -tree  loaded  with  fruit 
and  flowers,  I  found  my  man  in  a  droll  pass  with  his 
young  wife.  He  was,  in  fact,  tiring  her  hair  in  the 
open:  nothing  more;  nevertheless  there  was  that  air 
of  mystery  in  the  performance  which  made  me  at  once 
squeamish  of  going  further,  and  afraid  to  withdraw. 
I  stood,  therefore,  in  confusion  while  the  sport  went 
on.  It  was  of  his  seeking  I  could  see,  for  the  poor 
girl  looked  shamefaced  and  weary  enough.  She  was  a 
winsome  child  (no  more),  broad  in  the  brows,  full  in 
the  eye,  yellow -haired,  like  most  of  the  women  in  this 
place,  with  a  fine-shaped  mouth,  rather  voluptuously 
underlipped;  and,  as  I  then  saw  her,  sitting  in  a  carven 
chair  with  her  hands  at  a  listless  droop  over  the  arms 
of  it.  Her  hair,  which  was  loose  about  her  and  of 
great  length  and  softness,  lay  at  the  mercy  of  her 
master.  He,  a  short  pursy  man,  over  middle  age  — 
"  past  the  Grand  Climacteric,"  as  Bulwer  Lytton  used 
to  say  —  red  and  anxiously  lined,  stood  behind  her, 


248  Of  Boils  and  the  Ideal 

barber  fashion,  and  ran  her  hair  through  his  fingers, 
all  the  while  talking  to  himself  very  fast.  His  eyes 
were  half -shut:  he  seemed  ravished  by  the  sight  of  so 
much  gold  (if  common  reports  belie  him  not)  or  the 
feel  of  so  much  silk  (the  likelier  opinion),  I  know  not 
which.  Assuredly  so  odd  a  beginning  to  my  adventure, 
a  hardier  man  would  have  stumbled ! 

The  sport  went  on.  The  girl,  as  I  considered  her, 
was  of  slight,  almost  mean  figure;  her  good  looks, 
which  as  yet  lay  rather  in  promise,  resolved  themselves 
into  a  small  compass,  for  they  ended  at  her  shoulders. 
Below  them  she  was  slender  to  stooping,  and  with  no 
shape  to  speak  of.  Allow  her  a  fine  little  head,  the 
timid  freshness  natural  to  her  age,  a  blush-rose  skin, 
slim  neck,  and  that  glorious  weight  of  hair:  there  is 
Perugino's  wife !  Add  that  she  was  vested  in  a  milky 
green  robe  which  was  cut  square  and  low  at  the  neck 
and  fitted  her  close,  and  I  have  no  more  to  say  on  her 
score  than  she  had  on  any.  As  for  the  Maestro  him- 
self, I  got  to  know  him  better.  On  mere  sight  I  could 
guess  something  of  him.  A  master  evidently,  unhappy 
when  not  ordering  something;  fidgetty  by  the  same 
token;  yet  a  fellow  of  humours,  and  fertile  of  inven- 
tions whereon  to  feed  them.  The  more  I  considered 
him  the  more  subtle  ministry  to  his  pleasures  did  I 
find  this  morning's  work  to  be.  A  man,  finally,  hap- 
piest in  dreams.  I  looked  at  him  now  in  that  vein. 
In  and  out,  elbow-deep  sometimes,  went  his  hands  and 
arms,  plunging,  swimming  in  that  luxurious  mesh  of 
hair.  He  sprayed  it  out  in  a  shower  for  Danae ;  he 
clutched  it  hard  and  drew  it  into  thick  burnished  ropes 


Of  Boils  and  the  Ideal          249 

of  fine  gold.  Anon,  as  the  whim  caught  him,  he 
would  pile  it  up  and  hedge  it  with  great  silver  pins, 
fanshape,  such  as  country  girls  use,  till  it  took  the 
semblance,  now  of  a  tower,  now  of  a  wheel,  now  of 
some  winged  beast  —  sphinx  or  basilisk  —  couching  on 
the  girl's  head.  Then,  stepping  back  a  little,  he  would 
clasp  his  hands  over  his  eyes,  and  with  head  in  air 
sing  some  snatch  of  triumph,  or  laugh  aloud  for  the 
very  wildness  of  his  power;  and  so  the  game  went  on, 
that  seemed  a  feast  of  delight  to  the  man  —  a  feast  ? 
an  orgie  of  sense.  But  the  woman  might  have  been 
cut  in  stone.  Had  she  not  breathed,  or  had  not  her 
fingers  faintly  stirred  now  and  again,  you  would  have 
sworn  her  a  wax  doll. 

I  know  not  how  long  the  two  might  have  stayed  at 
their  affairs,  for  here  I  grew  wearied  and,  coughing 
discreetly,  slid  my  foot  on  the  flags.  The  man  looked 
up,  stopped  his  play  at  once;  the  spell  was  broken. 

The  girl,  I  noticed,  stirred  not  at  all,  but  sat  on  as 
she  was  with  her  hair  about  her  clasping  her  shoulders 
and  flooding  her  with  gold.  But  Master  Peter  was  a 
little  disconcerted,  I  am  pretty  sure ;  certainly  he  was 
redder  than  usual  about  the  gills  and  gullet.  He 
cleared  his  throat  once  or  twice  with  an  attempt  at 
pomposity  which  he  vainly  tried  to  sustain  as  he  came 
out  to  meet  me.  When  I  handed  him  the  Prothono- 
tary's  letter,  and  he  saw  the  broad  seal,  he  bowed  quite 
low;  the  letter  read,  he  took  me  by  the  hand  and  led 
me  to  the  loggia  of  his  house.  We  had  to  pass  Madam 
on  the  way  thither ;  but  by  this  Master  Peter  carried 
off  the  affair  as  coolly  as  you  choose.  "  Imola,  child," 


2S°  Of  Boils  and  the  Ideal 

he  said  as  we  passed,  "  I  have  company.  Put  up  thy 
hair  and  fetch  me  out  a  fiaschone  of  Orvieto  —  that  of 
the  year  before  last.  Be  sure  thou  makest  no  mistake ; 
and  break  no  bottles,  girl,  for  the  wine  is  good.  And 
hard  enough  to  come  by,"  he  added  with  a  sigh.  The 
girl  obeyed.  Without  raising  her  eyes  she  rose ;  with  - 
out  raising  them  she  put  her  hands  to  her  head  and 
deftly  braided  and  coiled  her  hair  into  a  single  twist ; 
still  looking  down  to  earth  she  passed  into  the  house. 

Pietro  began  to  talk  briskly  enough  so  soon  as  we 
were  set.  The  air  was  mild  for  mid -March  ;  between 
the  ridged  tiles  of  the  cortile,  which  ran  up  to  a  great 
height,  I  could  see  a  square  of  pale  blue  sky ;  gnats 
were  busy  in  the  beam  of  dusty  light  which  slanted 
across  the  shade ;  I  heard  the  bees  about  the  lemon- 
bush  droning  of  a  quiet  and  opulent  summer  hovering 
near-by.  It  was  a  very  peaceful  and  well-disposed 
world  just  then.  Pietro,  much  at  his  ease,  was  apt  to 
take  life  as  he  found  it  —  nor  do  I  wonder. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "the  work  goes;  the  work  goes.  I 
have  much  to  do;  you  may  call  me  just  now  quite  a 
man  of  affairs.  This  very  morning,  now,  I  received  a 
little  deputation  from  Citta  di  Castello  —  quite  a  com- 
pany! The  Prior,  the  Sub-Prior,  two  Vicars -Choral, 
two  Wardens  of  Guilds,  and  other  gentlemen,  craving 
a  piece  by  my  own  hand  for  the  altar  of  Saint  Roch. 
I  thank  our  Lord  I  can  pick  and  choose  in  these  days. 
I  told  them  I  would  think  of  it,  whereat  they  seemed 
to  know  relief,  but  I  added,  How  did  they  wish  the 
boil  treated,  on  the  Saint's  left  thigh?  For  I  told 
them,  and  I  was  very  firm,  that  though  Holy  Church 


Of  Boils  and  the  Ideal          251 

might  aver  the  boil  to  have  been  a  grievous  boil,  a 
boil  indeed,  yet  my  art  could  have  little  to  say  to  boils, 
as  boils.  The  boil  must  be  a  great  boil,  and  a  red, 
said  they;  for  the  populace  love  best  what  they  know 
.best,  and  cannot  worship,  as  you  might  say,  with 
maimed  rites.  Moreover,  Poggibonsi  had  a  Saint 
Roch  done  by  that  luxurious  Sienese  Bazzi  (a  man  of 
scandalous  living,  as  I  daresay  you  know),  where  the 
boil  was  fiery  to  behold  and  as  big  as  a  man's  ankle- 
bone.  This  was  a  cause  of  new  great  devotion  among 
the  impious  by  reason  of  its  plain  relationship  to  our 
frail  flesh.  Citta  was  a  poor  city ;  in  fine,  there  must 
be  a  handsome  boil.  I  said,  Let  me  refine  upon  the 
boil,  and  Saint  Roch  is  yours,  with  Madonna,  in  addi- 
tion, caught  up  in  clouds  of  pure  light,  and  two 
fiddling  angels,  one  at  either  hand.  Finally,  with  the 
petition  that  Madonna  should  be  rarely  adorned  with 
pearls  Flemish -fashion,  they  let  me  have  my  way 
upon  the  boil.  So  the  work  goes  on  !" 

"But,  good  Master  Peter,"  I  exclaimed  here,  "I 
could  find  some  discrepancy  in  this.  On  the  one  hand 
you  boggle  at  boils,  on  the  other  you  suffer  pearls  to 
be  thrust  upon  you.  Why,  if  you  cleave  to  the  one, 
should  you  despise  the  other  ?  For,  for  aught  I  see, 
your  thesis  should  exclude  either." 

"  And  so  it  does,"  he  said,  smiling.  "  But  for  one 
man  in  Citt&  that  knows  a  pearl  there  will  be  a  hun- 
dred who  can  judge  of  a  boil.  My  Madonna  will  be  a 
pearl-faced  Umbrian  maid,  and  her  other  pearls  just 
as  Flemish  as  I  choose.  But  I  hear  our  glasses  clink- 
ing." 


252  Of  Boils  and  the  Ideal 

I,  too,  heard  Imola's  footfall  on  the  flags,  and 
ventured  to  say,  "  And  I  know  where  your  Madonna 
is,  Master  Peter."  But  he  affected  not  to  hear. 

She  served  us  our  amber  cup  with  the  same  persist- 
ent, almost  sullen,  self -continence.  But,  I  thought,  I 
must  see  your  eyes,  Mistress,  for  once ;  so  called  to 
mind  my  encounter  with  the  wild  young  Baglione  of 
the  morning.  Smiling  as  easily  as  I  could,  I  accosted 
her  with  "  Madonna,  I  am  the  bearer  of  compliments 
to  you,  if  you  choose  to  hear  them."  Then  she  looked 
me  full  for  a  second  of  time.  I  saw  by  her  dilating 
eyes,  wide  as  a  hare's,  that  she  was  not  always  queen 
of  herself,  and  pitied  her.  For  it  is  ill  to  think  of 
broken -in  hearts,  or  souls  set  in  bars,  and  I  could 
fancy  Master  Peter's  hand  not  so  light  upon  her  as 
upon  church-walls.  But  I  went  on,  "Yes,  Madonna, 
even  as  I  rode  up  hither,  I  met  a  young  knight-at-arms 
who  wished  you  as  well  as  you  were  fair,  and  kissed 
your  hands  as  best  he  might,  considering  the  dis- 
tance, before  he  rode  off."  Imola  blushed,  but  said 
nothing. 

"Who  was  this  youth,  sir?"  asked  Master  Peter,  in 
a  hurry. 

"It  was  plainly  some  young  noble  of  your  State," 
said  I,  "but  for  his  name  I  know  nothing,  for  he  told 
me  nothing."  I  added  this  quickly,  because  I  could 
see  our  friend  was  keen  enough,  for  all  his  coat  of 
unconcern,  and  I  feared  the  whip  by-and-bye  for 
Imola's  thin  shoulders.  But  I  knew  quite  well  who 
the  boy  was.  Imola  went  lightly  away  without  any 
sign  of  twitter.  I  turned  to  Master  Peter  again. 


Of  Boils  and  the  Ideal          253 

"In  this  matter  of  boils  and  pearls,"  I  began,  "I 
would  not  deny  but  you  are  in  the  right,  and  yet  there 
is  this  to  be  said.  The  Greeks  of  whose  painting, 
truly,  we  have  next  to  nothing,  in  all  the  work  of 
theirs  known  to  us,  did  what  lay  before  them  as  well 
as  ever  they  could.  They  stayed  not  to  theorise  over 
this  axiom  and  that,  that  formula  and  this.  They  said 
rather,  You  wish  for  the  presentment  of  a  man  with  a 
boil  on  his  leg?  Well.  And  they  produced  both 
man  and  boil." 

"  Why  yes,  yes,"  broke  in  my  friend,  "  that  is  plain 
enough.  But  apart  from  this,  that  you  are  talking  of 
sculpture  to  me  who  do  but  paint,  you  should  know 
very  well  that  your  Greek  copied  no  single  boil,  no, 
nor  no  probable  boil,  but,  as  it  were,  the  summary  and 
perfect  conclusion  of  all  possible  boils." 

"7b  Pithanon?  Yes;  I  admit  it.  For  Aristotle 
says  as  much." 

"  Right  so  do  I,  in  my  degree  and  by  my  art,"  said 
Perugino ;  "  and  without  knowing  anything  of  Aristotle 
save  that  he  was  wise." 

"Your  pardon,  my  brave  Vannucci,"  I  said,  "but 
you  have  admitted  the  opposite  of  this.  Did  you  not 
hint  to  the  deputation  that  you  would  give  Saint  Roch 
no  boils  ?  And  have  you  ever  let  creep  into  your 
pieces  the  semblance  of  so  much  as  a  pimple? 
Remember,  I  know  your  Sebastian;  and  know,  also, 
II  Sodoma's,  which  he  made  as  a  banner  for  the 
Confraternity  of  that  famous  Saint  in  Camollia." 

"  I  seek  the  essence  of  fact,"  he  replied,  "  which, 
believe  me,  never  lay  in  the  displacement  of  an  arrow- 


254  Of  Boils  and  the  Ideal 

point;  no,  nor  in  the  head  of  a  boil.  Bazzi  is  a 
sensualist:  as  his  palate  grows  stale  he  whets  it  by 
stronger  meat ;  thinks  to  provoke  appetite  by  disgust ; 
would  draw  you  on  by  a  nasty  inference,  as  a  dog  by 
his  hankering  after  faecal  odours.  What  nearness  to 
Art  in  his  plumpy  boy  stuck  with  arrows  like  a 
skewered  capon  ?  Causes  nuns  to  weep,  hey  ?  and  to 
dream  dreams,  hey?  Nature  would  do  that  cleanlier; 
and  waxwork  more  powerfully!  Form,  my  good  sir, 
Form  is  your  safeguard.  Lay  hold  on  Form  ;  you  are 
as  near  to  Essence  as  may  be  here  below.  Art  works 
for  the  rational  enlargement  of  the  fancy,  not  the 
titillation  of  sense.  And  Invention  is  the  more  sacred 
the  closer  it  apes  the  scope  of  the  divine  plan.  And 
this  much,  at  least,  of  the  Grecian  work  I  have 
learned,  that  it  will  never  lick  vulgar  shoes,  nor  fawn 
to  beastly  eyes.  It  is  a  stately  order,  a  high  pageant, 
a  solemn  gradual,  wherein  the  beholder  will  behold 
just  so  much  as  he  is  prepared,  by  litany,  and  fasting, 
and  long  vigil,  to  receive.  No  more  and  no  less." 

"  Aristotle  again,"  said  I,  "  with  his  '  continual  slight 
novelty.'  No  fits  and  starts !  " 

"I  have  told  you  before  I  know  nothing  of  the 
man,"  said  Perugino,  vexed,  it  appeared,  at  such 
wounding  of  his  vanity  to  be  new;  "let  me  tell  you 
this.  There  are  fellows  abroad  who  dub  me  dunce 
and  dull-head.  The  young  Buonarroti,  forsooth,  who 
mistakes  the  large  for  the  great,  quantity  for  quality ; 
who  in  the  indetermined  pretends  to  see  the  mysterious. 
Mystery,  quotha !  Mystery  may  be  in  an  astrologer's 
horoscope,  in  a  diagram.  Mystery  needs  no  puckered 


Of  Boils  and  the  Ideal          255 

virago,  nor  bully  in  the  sulks.  There  is  mystery  in 
the  morning  calms,  mystery  in  a  girl's  melting  mood; 
mystery  in  the  irresolution  of  a  growing  boy  full  of 
dreams.  But  behold!  it  is  there,  not  here.  If  you 
see  it  not,  the  fault  is  your  own.  It  may  be  broad  as 
day,  cut  clean  as  with  a  knife,  displayed  at  large  before 
a  brawling  world  too  busy  lapping  or  grudging  to  heed 
it.  The  many  shall  pass  it  by  as  they  run  huddling  to 
the  dark.  Yet  the  few  shall  adore  therein  the 
excellency  of  the  mystery,  even  as  the  few  (the  very 
few)  may  discern  in  the  flake  of  wafer-bread  the  shin- 
ing wholeness  of  the  Divine  Nature " 

" '  The  few  remain,  the  many  change  and  pass,' "  I 
interpolated  in  a  murmur.  But  Perugino  never  heeded 
me.  He  went  on. 

"The  Greek,  young  sir,  took  the  fact  and  let  it 
alone  to  breed.  His  act  lay  in  the  taking  and  setting. 
Just  so  much  import  as  it  had  borne  it  bore  still;  just 
so  much  weight  as  separation  from  its  fellows  lent  it 
was  to  his  credit  who  first  cut  it  free.  But  nowadays 
glamour  suits  only  with  serried  muscles,  frowns,  and 
writhen  lips;  where  darkness  is  we  shudder,  saying, 
Behold  a  great  mystery!  Let  a  painter  declare  his 
incompetence  to  utter,  it  shall  be  enough  to  assure 
you  he  has  walked  with  God;  for  if  he  stammers,  look 
you,  that  testifies  he  is  overwhelmed.  Amen,  I  would 
answer.  Let  his  head  swim  and  be  welcome;  but  let 
him  not  set  to  painting  till  he  can  stand  straight  again. 
For  in  one  thing  I  am  no  Greek,  in  that  I  cannot  hold 
drunkenness  divine."  Here  the  good  man  stopped 
for  want  of  breath  and  I  whipped  in. 


256  Of  Boils  and  the  Ideal 

"  Your  great  Crucifixion  in  Santa  Maria  Maddalena," 
I  began. 

"  Look  you,  sir,"  he  took  me  up,  "  I  know  what  you 
would  be  at.  Take  that  piece  (which  is  of  my  very 
best)  or  another  equally  good,  I  mean  the  Charge  to 
Peter  in  Pope  Sixtus  his  new  Chapel,  and  listen  to  me. 
The  first  thing  your  painter  must  seek  to  do  is  to  fill 
his  wall.  Let  there  be  no  mistake  about  this.  He  is 
at  first  no  prophet  or  man  of  God;  he  is  no  juggler 
nor  mountebank  who  shall  be  rewarded  according  to 
the  enormity  of  his  grins;  his  calling,  maybe,  is 
humbler,  for  all  he  stands  for  is  to  wash  a  wrall  so  that 
no  eye  be  set  smarting  because  of  it.  Now  that  seems 
a  very  simple  matter;  it  is  just  as  simple  as  the  eye 
itself  —  so  you  may  judge  the  validity  of  the  arguments 
against  me,  that  a  wholesome  green  or  goodly  red 
wash  would  suffice.  It  would  suffice  indifferent  well 
for  a  kennel  of  dogs.  But  mark  this.  Although  your 
painter  may  drop  hints  for  the  soul,  let  him  not  strain 
above  his  pitch  lest  he  crack  his  larynx.  To  his 
colour  he  may  add  form  in  the  flat;  but  he  cannot 
escape  the  flat,  however  he  may  wriggle,  any  more 
than  the  sculptor  can  escape  the  round,  scrape  he 
never  so  wisely.  Buonarroti  will  scrape  and  shift ;  the 
Fleming  has  scraped  and  shifted  all  his  days  to  as  little 
purpose.  His  seed-pearls  invite  your  touch.  Touch 
them,  my  friend,  you  will  smear  your  fingers.  Ne 
sutor  ultra  crepidam.  Leave  miracles,  O  painter,  to 
the  Saint,  and  stick  to  your  brush-work.  Colour  and 
form  in  the  flat;  there  is  his  armour  to  win  the  citadel 
of  a  man's  soul." 


Of  Boils  and  the  Ideal          257 

"  They  call  you  mawkish,"  I  dared  to  say. 

"  I  am  in  good  company,"  said  the  little  man  with 
much  pomposity. 

"  You  say  boldly,  then,  if  I  catch  the  chain  of  your 
argument" — thus  I  pursued  him  —  " that  you  present 
(as  by  some  formula  which  you  have  elaborated)  the 
facts  of  religion  in  colour  and  design  ?  For  I  suppose 
you  will  allow  that  your  Art  is  concerned  at  least  as 
much  with  religion  as  with  the  washing  of  walls  ? " 

"  Religion  !  Religion  !  "  cried  he.  "  What  are  you 
at  ?  Concerned  with  religion !  Man  alive,  it  is  con- 
cerned with  itself ;  it  is  religion.  I  see  you  are  very 
far  indeed  from  the  truth,  and  as  you  have  spoken  of 
my  Crucifixion  in  Florence,  now  you  shall  suffer  me  to 
speak  of  it.  I  testify  what  I  know,  not  that  which  I 
have  not  seen.  And  as  mine  eyes  have  never  filled 
with  blood  from  Golgotha,  so  I  do  not  conjure  with 
tools  I  have  not  learned  to  handle.  But  I  will  tell 
you  what  I  have  seen.  The  Mass :  whereof  my  piece 
is,  as  it  were,  the  transfiguration  or  a  parable.  For  it 
grew  out  of  a  Mass  I  once  heard,  stately-ordered, 
solemnly  and  punctiliously  served  in  a  great  church. 
Mayhap,  I  dreamed  of  it;  we  shall  not  quarrel  over 
terms.  It  was  a  strange  Mass,  shorn  of  much  orna- 
ment and  circumstance;  I  thought,  as  I  knelt  and 
wondered:  Here  are  no  lamentations,  no  bruised 
breasts,  no  outpoured  hearts,  nor  souls  on  flames. 
The  day  for  tears  is  past,  the  fires  are  red,  not  flaming ; 
this  is  a  day  for  steadfast  regard,  for  service,  patience, 
and  good  hope ;  this  is  a  day  for  Art  to  chant  what 
the  soul  hath  endured.  For  Art  is  a  fruit  sown  in 


258  Of  Boils  and  the  Ideal 

action  and  watered  to  utterance  by  tears.  Two  priests 
only,  clothed  in  fine  linen,  served  the  Mass  :  ornaments 
of  candles,  incense,  prostration,  genuflection,  there 
were  none.  Yet,  step  by  step,  and  with  every  step 
pondered  reverently  ere  another  was  laid  to  its  fellow's 
foundation ;  with  full  knowledge  of  the  end  ere  yet 
was  the  beginning  accomplished;  in  every  gesture, 
every  pause,  intonation,  invocation,  stave  of  song, 
phrase  of  prayer;  by  painful  degrees  wrought  in  the 
soul's  sweat  and  tears,  unadorned,  cold  as  fine  stone, 
yet  glittering  none  the  less  like  fair  marble  set  in  the 
sun — was  that  solemn  Mass  sung  through  in  the  bare 
Church  to  the  glory  of  God  and  His  angels,  who  must 
ever  rejoice  in  a  work  done  so  that  the  master-mind  is 
straining  and  on  watch  over  heart  and  voice.  And  I 
said,  Calvary  is  done  and  the  woe  of  it  turned  to 
triumph.  Love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  Law.  Hence- 
forth, for  me  Law  shall  be  the  fulfilment  of  my  Love. 

"  Therefore  I  paint  no  terrors  of  death^  no  flesh  torn 
by  iron,  no  passion  of  an  anguish  greater  than  we  can 
ever  conceive,  no  bitter-sweet  ecstasy  of  Self  aban- 
doned or  Love  inflaming;  but  instead,  serenity,  a 
morning  sky,  a  meek  victim,  Love  fulfilling  Law. 
Shorn  of  accidents,  for  the  essence  is  enough;  not 
passionate,  for  that  were  as  gross  an  affront  in  face  of 
such  awful  death  as  to  be  trivial.  Nothing  too  much  : 
Law  fulfilling  Love :  reasonable  service. 

"And  because  we  are  of  the  earth  earthy;  and 
because  what  I  work  you  must  behold  with  bodily 
eyes,  I  limn  you  angels  and  gods  in  your  own  image ; 
not  of  greater  stature  nor  of  more  excellent  beauty 


Of  Boils  and  the  Ideal          259 

than  many  among  you ;  not  of  finer  essence,  maybe, 
than  yourselves.  But  as  the  priests  about  that  naked 
altar,  so  stand  they,  that  the  love  which  transfigures 
them  be  absorbed  in  the  fulfilling  of  law  ;  and  the  law 
they  exquisitely  follow  be  at  once  the  pattern  and 
glass  of  their  love." 

Master  Peter  drained  a  beaker  of  his  Orvieto.  I 
admired ;  for  indeed  the  little  man  spoke  well. 

"Now  the  Lord  be  good  to  you,  Master  Peter,"  I 
said;  "men  do  you  a  great  wrong.  For  there  are 
some  who  aver  that  you  doubt." 

"Who  does  not  doubt?"  replied  my  host.  "We 
doubt  whenever  we  cannot  see." 

"  I  believe  you  are  right,"  said  I.  "  Your  great 
Saint  is,  after  all,  your  great  Seer.  For  you,  then,  to 
question  the  soul's  immortality  is  but  to  admit  that 
you  do  not  yet  see  your  own  life  to  come." 

"  Leave  it  so,"  said  Perugino.  "  Let  us  talk 
reasonably." 

"  Did  all  men  love  the  law  as  you  do,"  I  resumed 
after  a  painful  pause  —  for  I  felt  the  force  of  the 
Master's  rebuke  to  my  impertinence  (and  could  hope 
others  will  feel  it  also)  — "  did  all  love  the  law  as  you 
do,  the  world  would  be  a  cooler  place  and  passion 
at  a  discount.  But  I  cannot  conceive  Art  without 
passion." 

"Nor  I,"  said  the  painter,  "and  for  the  excellent 
reason  that  there  is  no  such  thing.  But  remember 
this:  passion  is  like  the  Alpheus.  Hedge  it  about 
with  dams,  you  drive  it  deeper.  Out  of  sight  is  not 
out  of  being.  And  the  issue  must  needs  be  the  fairer." 


260  Of  Boils  and  the  Ideal 

"  Happy  the  passion,"  I  said,  "  which  hath  an  issue. 
There  is  passion  of  the  vexed  sort,  where  the  tears  are 
frozen  to  ice  as  they  start.  Of  the  tortured  thus, 
remember  — 

Lo  pianto  stesso  li  pianger  non  lascia, 

E  il  duol,  che  trova  in  su  gli  occhi  rintoppo, 

Si  volve  in  entro  a  far  crescer  1'ambascia." 

"  You  know  our  Dante  ?"  said  Master  Peter  blandly 
(though  I  swear  he  knew  what  I  was  at).  "There 
may  be  such  people ;  doubtless  there  are  such  people. 
For  me,  I  find  a  perpetual  outlet  in  my  art."  I  could 
not  forbear 

"  Master  Peter,  Master  Peter,"  I  cried  out,  "  how  can 
I  believe  you  when  I  know  that  your  Madonna's  eyes 
are  brimming ;  when  I  know  why  she  turns  them  to  a 
misty  heaven  or  an  earth  seen  blotted  by  reason  of 
tears?  Do  these  tears  ever  fall,  Master  Peter?  or 
who  freezes  them  as  they  start  ?  " 

For  I  wondered  where  his  patient  Imola  found  her 
outlet,  and  whether  young  Simone  has  shown  her  a 
way.  Master  Peter  drummed  on  the  table  and  nursed 
one  fat  leg. 

Before  I  took  leave  of  the  urbane  little  painter,  in 
fact  while  I  stood  in  the  act  of  handshaking,  I  saw 
her  white  face  at  an  upper  window,  looming  behind 
rigid  bars.  On  a  sudden  impulse  I  concluded  my 
farewells  rapidly  and  made  to  go.  Vannucci  turned 
back  into  the  house  and  closed  the  door ;  but  I  stayed 
in  the  cortile  pretending  a  trouble  with  my  spurs. 
Sure  enough,  in  a  short  time  I  heard  a  light  footfall. 
Imola  stood  beside  me. 


Of  Boils  and  the  Ideal          261 

"Wish  me  a  safe  journey,"  I  said,  smiling,  "and 
no  more  bare-headed  cavaliers  on  the  road."  Her  lips 
hardly  moved,  so  still  her  voice  was.  "  Was  he  bare- 
headed ? "  she  asked,  as  if  in  awe. 

"Love -locks  floating  free,"  I  answered  her  gaily 
enough.  "  Shall  I  thank  him  for  his  courtesies  to 
you,  Madonna,  if  we  meet  ?  " 

"You  will  not  meet:  he  is  gone  to  Spello,"  she 
began,  and  then  stopped,  blushing  painfully. 

"  But  I  may  stay  in  Spello  this  night  and  could  seek 
him  out." 

She  was  mistress  of  her  lips,  and  could  now  look 
steadily  at  me.  "  I  wish  him  very  well,"  said  Imola. 

4 


FOR  THREE  FIGURES  BY  SANDRO 
BOTTICELLI ' 

(OF    THE    SAME    LADY  —  SIMONETTA    DE*   VESPUCCI  — 
MISTRESS    OF   GIULIANO    DE5    MEDICl) 


For  Zipporah  in  the  Sixtine  Chapel 

Who  is  this  comes  in  Death's  cere-cloth  to  earth  ? 

Whose  is  the  wan  dead  face  with  frozen  eyes 

That  gash  its  white  mask  like  cloud-companies 
Crossing  the  silver-disked  Moon  ?     What  birth, 
Bodeful,  forlorn,  and  hapless,  chills  the  mirth 

Of  Rome?     What  ghost?     What  shuddering  surprise  ? 

What  witches'  shroud  of  shrieking  mysteries, 
Unresting,  aches  like  famine  and  days  of  dearth  ? 
Dead  Simonetta's  ash-grey  face  is  this, 

Lapp'd  in  her  flame  of  hair :  "  Reproach  !  "  she  wails, 
"  Reproach  1     For  I  am  dead ;  and  born  again 


i  The  one  personality  dominating  Earthwork  is  undoubtedly 
found  in  the  "imaginary  portrait"  of  Botticelli  and  how  he  dis- 
covered Simonetta  and  painted  her.  It  is  of  interest  to  note  that 
two  years  previous  to  the  appearance  of  his  book  Mr.  Hewlett 
printed  these  three  sonnets  in  The  Academy  for  March  18,  1893, 
which  we  here  offer  our  readers. 


264  For  Three  Figures 

To  die  again!     Reproach  !     For  utter  pain 
Laid  on  me.     My  pale  lips  shall  cut  like  flails, 
Since  all  dead  ladies'  wrongs  freeze  in  my  kiss  t" 


II 

For  the  "  Vergine  Lattante  "  in  the  National  Gallery 

I  would  not  think  to  see  so  cold  a  face, 
Such  listless  ringers,  such  inscrutable  eyes : 
The  very  Angels  pity ;  yet  He  lies, 
Thy  Burthen  mighty  to  save,  of  awful  Race, 
Father'd  by  God !     O  Virgin  full  of  Grace ! 

Why  pales  thine  innocent  bosom  ?     Wherefore  flies 
The  blush  thy  cheek,  as  light  from  desolate  skies  ? 
What  is  this  mystery  ?     Speak  thy  dolorous  case  ! 
"  I  am  the  soul  of  the  World,  and  mine  the  Womb 

Of  Time,  and  Life,  and  Love,  and  Agony. 
God  set  me  in  the  midst,  and  this  my  doom, 

Conceiving,  I  must  bear  eternally. 
Once  through  the  broad  white  ways  I  walk'd  a  maid  : 
Now  my  high  destiny  makes  me  wither  and  fade." 

in 

For  the  "Madonna  Incoronata"  in  the  Uffizi 

The  crown  of  stars  burns  bright  above  her  hair  — 
Massy  her  hair  and  flaming  like  red  gold  — 
And  from  the  orient  scarves,  that  deep  enfold 

Her  chaste  white  brows,  the  patient  face  shines  fair. 


by  Sandro  Botticelli  265 

Young  Angels  eager  flock  about  her  chair, 

Tendering  the  Book  ;  for  there  shall  stand  enroll'd 
Her  chant,  of  whom  the  swift  Archangel  told : 
«  This  is  that  Virgin  that  a  God  shall  bear." 
O  crimson  anguish !     O  sad  passionate  mouth  ! 
O  lips  that  pout  and  droop  like  clots  of  blood  I 

O  tired  eyelids  sagging  as  ripe  corn 
In  autumn !     All  the  languors  of  the  South 

Throb  in  thy  veins  I     And  sorrow  at  the  flood 
Wails,  **  It  were  better  I  had  not  been  born  1 " 


